LUCY ventures in various fields. Starting with blood donation LUCY stretches hands for the underprivileged children extending support for their health, hygiene and education. Self Help Groups are created under the banner of LUCY for a better tomorrow for the young underprivileged class. HIV-AIDS is one of the biggest threats of today’s world. Counseling and Intervention of HIV-AIDS is one of the important projects of LUCY. Caring hands of LUCY is also stretched for cancer and thalassaemia affected children.

   We welcome all to join our cause and become our blood relations, regardless of caste, creed, colour, sex, religion or nationality. We want your support to make our world beautiful.

"LUCY (LET US CARE for YOU)" is a completely non-profit, voluntary, subscription-driven society registered under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act. 

LUCY CARES .. we care for you, we care for people

• Giving support to the formal education of the sponsored child.

• Routine medical check ups helps us to find out children with signs of malnutrition.  

There is no other fluid, which can totally substitute blood in the human body. Most of us do not realize that there is a constant necessity of blood and hence there is a need for motivation to donate blood voluntarily. One of our objectives is to ensure the easily accessible, adequate supplies of safe and quality blood and blood components for all irrespective of economic or social status. Blood should be pure and free from contamination. In case of transfusion of infected blood, it is almost sure that such blood would carry transmissible diseases like hepatitis, syphilis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. HIV is one of the latest additions to the long list of already existing diseases that can be transmitted through transfusion. This objective guides us into the following operations for which necessary steps were initiated in right earnest.

• To ensure the ready availability of the required group of blood 
  whenever it is needed (24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year).

• Organize blood donation camps among the different sectors of people
  to spread the messages about Blood Donation and to remove
  the myths and misconceptions about blood donation.

• Maintain the database of blood donors.
                         

• Organizing Blood Donation camps among Colleges to spread the awareness 
  among our next young generation.
  

• To arrange a mass public HIV-AIDS awareness campaign.

• Organize free medical camps for the underprivileged .

• Organize seminars, workshops to enhance psychological support.                    

WHAT IS BLOOD?

WHAT IS THE MAIN FUNTION OF BLOOD?

The main functions of blood are:

1. To carry oxygen and some essential components like electrolytes, hormones, vitamins, and nutrients throughout the body as well as carbon dioxide and other waste back to lungs, kidneys, and liver;

2. Maintain the body immunity.

Furthermore, blood helps in healing of wounds and also keeps our body temperature steady.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN COMPONENTS OF THE LIQUID?

Blood is mainly made of about 22% solids and 78 % water. The components of human blood are:

· Plasma

· Red blood cells (RBC)

· White blood cells (WBC)

· Platelets

· Fat globules

· Chemical substances including carbohydrate, hormones, electrolytes, proteins.

· Gases like oxygen & carbon di oxide.

PLASMA: This is a straw colored liquid with 92% composed of water. However, the remaining 8 % of this liquid contains more than 200 substances, including minerals, vitamins, proteins, sugar, fats and some other minerals acting as chemical messengers and help fight diseases.

As more than the half of blood is made of this circulating liquid, the RBCs, WBCs, and Platelets as well as other components of blood move throughout the system remaining suspended in plasma. Generally, average adult body contains six pints of plasma out of 10 –12 of pints of blood.

Plasma carries nutrients to all parts of the human body and carries off waste products to the excretory organs.

RED BLOOD CELLS (RBC): This component makes up 40-50%of total blood volume and is responsible for providing the red color to the blood due to the oxygenated haemoglobin present in it. As it contains the iron containing protein haemogloobin, which is very much essential component helping in carrying of oxygen from lungs to the entire body cells and at the some time it picks up carbon dioxide and carries it back to the lungs to be exhaled, serves the most impotent function of blood to keep life possible. The oxygen released by the red cells help in the conversion of nutrients in food such as milk, red meat and green vegetables into energy.

The RBCs (erythrocytes) are disc shaped, round and tiny microscopic cells without nuclei. These red cells are produced in bone marrow at a rate of 2-3 million per second from the stem cells by hematopoiesis. Each red cell contains about 270,000,000 iron-rich hemoglobin molecules.

Fig 1: The red blood cells. Fig 2: Stained RBCs under Microscope.

WHITE BLOOD CELLS (WBC):Only 1% of total blood is composed of WBCs or leucocytes of variable number and types. Normally these are produced by the same hematopoiesis process in the bone marrow, and in some cases in the thymus gland. Other than blood, lymphocytes also occur in the spleen, liver and lymph glands. There are many specialized sub types of the cells that take vital part in our immune system. Among them the 5 main sub types are lymphocytes, monocytes (both agranular), basophils, neutrophils and eosinophils (all 3 are granular).

•Lymphocytes (20-25%) - recognize surface markers on cells and targets them for destruction if foreign to the body;

•Monocytes (3-8%) - formed in bone marrow, monocytes migrate into connective tissue and become macrophages;

•Basophils (5-1%) - acts on smooth muscle and Blood cell walls;

•Eosinophils (60-70%) - acts against infestations of parasitic larvae;

•Neutrophils (2-4%) - the first line of defense, 100 billion mature neutrophils are released into the body everyday.

The primary function that white blood cells, or leukocytes, play is to fight against various bacterial, viral, fungi, and parasitic infections.

• WBCs help in healing of wounds not only by fighting infection but also by ingesting matter such as tissue debris, dead cells and old erythrocytes.
• Gives us protections from foreign bodies such as allergens that enter the blood stream.
• Also protects against mutated cells, such as cancer.

Fig 3:WBC among some RBCs. Fig 4: Stained WBC under microscope.

PLATELETS: Platelets or thrombocytes are disc like structures that are most smaller in size (1/3 rd of RBCs), having a lifespan of 10 -12 days and produced in the bone marrow from the stem cells. Thrombocytes plays the vital role of clotting blood at the site of wounds by adhering to the walls of blood vessels, thereby plugging the rupture in the vascular walls, and thus stop bleeding. But, more than a dozen types of blood clotting factors and platelets are needed to interact in the blood clotting process. Recent research also shows that platelets help fight infections by releasing proteins that kill invading bacteria and some other microorganisms. Moreover, platelets stimulate the human immune system. One microliter (1/30,000 of an ounce) of blood normally contains about 4 million to 6 million red blood cells, 5,000 to 10,000 white blood cells, and 150,000 to 500,000 platelets.

Fig 5: Stained platelets under microscope.