‘You Are Pandey, She Is Vaishya, It Won’t Work’: Family Alleges Caste-Based Refusal of Blood Donor at Rewa Hospital
A caste discrimination allegation has emerged from the blood bank of Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, after the family of a critically ill patient alleged that staff refused to accept blood from a Brahmin acquaintance and asked them to bring a donor from their own caste. The hospital administration has denied the allegation, saying the potential donors were turned away because of medical concerns.
The incident allegedly took place on September 22 at the government-run hospital under Shyam Shah Medical College. The patient, a girl from Sidhi district belonging to the Vaishya community, was reportedly in critical condition and required a blood transfusion.
Family Alleges Doctor Cited Caste
According to the patient’s maternal uncle Baijnath Vaishya, the family initially tried to arrange a blood donor from within the family, but the person was below 18 years of age and could not donate. Baijnath then contacted his friend Jitendra Kumar Pandey, who agreed to donate blood.
In a video statement recorded outside the hospital, Baijnath alleged that the blood bank doctor questioned Pandey about his identity before refusing to accept his donation. “Pandey ji, you are a Pandey and she is a Vaishya, it won’t work. Bring someone from your own community, a relative, or get the doctor’s permission,” Baijnath said, recounting what he alleged the blood-bank staff told them.
He further alleged that the family was subsequently asked to arrange matching blood and faced difficulty even entering the hospital premises. “They are saying, bring someone from your own community or a relative. They will take their blood, but they will not take his,” Baijnath said.
‘I Wanted to Donate Blood’
Jitendra Kumar Pandey, who had accompanied the family, said he had volunteered because of his friendship with Baijnath. “They are my friends. We used to travel together in trucks. His niece is like my niece, so I wanted to donate blood,” Pandey said in the video.
Asked whether the blood bank refused to take his blood, Pandey replied “Yes, they refused to take it.” He said the family was allegedly told to bring someone from their own community or someone known to them. The family has alleged that the patient urgently needed blood and that they were struggling to arrange another eligible donor.
Hospital Denies Caste Discrimination
Hospital Superintendent Dr Priyank Sharma rejected the allegations and said the administration had conducted an inquiry. Dr Lokesh Tripathi, the blood-bank in-charge who conducted the inquiry, said the blood bank does not consider caste or religion when accepting blood donations. “The blood bank is the only place where caste or religion is never asked. This allegation is completely false,” Tripathi said in a video statement.
According to Tripathi, two people had come with the family to donate blood. One, he said, was found to have a medical condition classified as “high-risk behaviour”, details of which he said could not be disclosed because of medical confidentiality.
The second potential donor, he said, had a hernia. “The other person was a hernia patient, so the doctor on duty said that he could donate if he was not planning on getting his hernia operated on,” Tripathi said.
He added that doctors had counselled the family to bring a relative or someone whose health history and activities they were aware of. “It’s possible that the family may have misunderstood something. But I am issuing this statement so that no misconception is spread about the blood bank,” he said.
A senior doctor at the hospital, speaking anonymously, separately claimed that the donor whose blood was rejected had consumed alcohol the previous night and that the blood was therefore considered unsafe for donation.
Two Accounts Remain Disputed
The competing accounts leave the central question unresolved: whether the donor was rejected because of medical eligibility or whether caste was cited during the interaction.
The family’s allegation is based on the account of Baijnath and Jitendra Pandey, including their recorded statements. The hospital’s position is that caste was not involved and that the donors were assessed on medical grounds.
The blood-bank administration has not publicly disclosed the specific medical condition of the first potential donor, citing confidentiality. It has also not provided publicly available documentation establishing the exact reason for rejecting Pandey’s donation.
The controversy therefore centres not only on whether the donor was medically eligible, but also on what was communicated to the family when his donation was refused. For the family, the alleged statement linking Pandey’s surname and the patient’s caste is central to their complaint. For the hospital, the rejection was part of routine donor-safety screening and had no connection with caste.
The allegation has since drawn attention to the question of whether caste considerations can enter medical decision-making even where blood donation itself is governed by medical eligibility and screening requirements.
