Hundreds of Bhutanese people have volunteered to travel around 1,000km from their country, spending more than 24 hours to reach Calcutta to donate blood at their King’s bidding.

Tata Medical Center in New Town has been witnessing an unusual sight since last Thursday, when donors from Bhutan in bright orange uniforms walked into the blood bank building after offering prayers for the well-being of their King and country.

“They are from all walks of life — civil servants, college students, entrepreneurs.... This is the first batch of 41. A total of 334 have registered. They will come in batches till September 5. We will resume after the festivals here and continue till February. We want to bring at least 800-900 donors,” Tashi Penjore, consul general of the Royal Bhutanese consulate general, told Metro.

There are 121 cancer patients from Bhutan currently admitted at the New Town hospital. “The number never goes below 100. Till now, the hospital has been supplying blood to our patients as they are unable to bring donors,” he said.

Among the most common cases referred from Bhutan are head and neck cancer, cancer of the blood and lymph, gastrointestinal tumours and paediatric cancer, pointed out P. Arun, director of Tata Medical Center. “Leukaemia, bone marrow transplant, surgeries etc may need a lot of blood. You cannot buy blood in the market. Whenever we put up a notice saying a patient from Bhutan needs blood, our staff members offer to donate,” he said.

“We owe the hospital more than 400 units of blood,” the consul general said. In May, he had reached out to the secretariat of the King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. “Though our government covers the entire treatment cost, supply of blood remains a challenge. His Majesty recognised the problem and commanded his de-suung (guardian of peace) to step in,” he said.

Launched in 2011 by the current king, the de-suung programme encourages citizens from all walks of life to take up a role in nation-building and draws volunteers, called de-suups.

Once the royal command was issued, the volunteers were screened, ensuring only eligible donors would travel to India. “We started from Thimphu at 6.30am, crossed the border at Phuentsholing by bus and got off at Hasimara station at 4pm. Then we boarded the Kanchankanya Express and reached Sealdah at 8.30am. We had a bus waiting for us there,” said Ugyen Wangchuk, a 38-year-old English-speaking de-suup.

“This is the first time I am seeing donors coming in such numbers from another country. It is a bond of blood being formed. Patients from Bhutan have been coming here since 2012, the year after Tata Medical Center opened,” said director Arun, who has conducted surgery training at a Bhutan hospital.

The donors get to tour the city the next morning before they board the train back home. “We are planning to visit a mall. We do not have one in Bhutan,” said Thinley Dorji, a fire safety officer. The train trip was also a novelty as the mountainous land does not have railways.

“One of the volunteers was so excited that he said he did not sleep all night and kept looking out through the train window,” laughed the consul general.

The second batch of de-suups is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.