A day after publication of a report in The Telegraph about a hospital in Guwahati running out of stock in its blood bank owing to lack of donors during the lockdown, 11 persons turned up and many called to donate blood here on Thursday.

The chairman of the blood bank of Marwari Hospital, D.P. Bajaj, said as many as 11 persons had turned up to donate blood in the hospital since morning.

They are Mukesh Agarwal from Ulubari, Nishu Garg from Rehabari, Pravin Dabholkar from MG Road, Mitesh Surana from Fatasil, Nitin Agarwal from Rehabari, Abhisekh Agarwal from Lachit Nagar, Pawan Singh from Narengi, Manish Garodia from Christianbasti, Mukesh Jain from Bamunimaidam, Saurav Khetwat from Chatribari and Madan Borah from Forestgate.

Bajaj said the hospital gave blood to 23 people and out them three were thalassemia patients.

“We are thankful to The Telegraph for generating awareness. The role played by the print media is indeed impactful. People started calling us and came to donate blood. Another 11 to 12 people assured us that they would donate in the next two days. The hospital is currently in need of 10 to 15 units of blood daily for 10 days. I still ask people to come one by one to donate blood maintaining the social-distancing norms,” he said.

On Wednesday, Bajaj took to Facebook and wrote about scarcity of blood in the hospital’s blood bank. The hospital cannot hold blood-donation camps. Neither can the donors visit it due to the prevailing lockdown.

Earlier, the hospital received around 40-50 units of blood from a blood donation camp which lasted for 10 days. Three to four camps were enough to collect more than 100 units of blood.

The hospital authorities further said they were in need of more blood due to shifting of patients from government-run hospitals to private hospitals after a government directive to treat only coronavirus-affected patients at government-run hospitals barring a few departments.

On Thursday, blood donation took place in Health City Hospital.

A person from Golaghat district admitted to the hospital for a heart surgery required two units of blood. One Bibhusita Sarma donated one unit of blood to the patient. Members of Touch of Humanity, an NGO, ferried the donor to the hospital.

The NGO said there is a need of three units of O negative blood at Nemcare Hospital and three units of B positive blood at Hayat Hospital.

Donors can call at 7002595970 for free ride to and from the hospital.