Focusing on new trends in donating blood on occasion of World Blood Donor Day : Launched by a trust in July 2010, the service has saved 6000 lives in state so far.
Eight year old Kundan, patient of haematosis was admitted in emergency. Doctors immediately needed blood AB+ to save his life. Dr. Hemal Kothari, a general surgeon, who handled the case smsed the details on 8866100108. And instantly got back detailed list of near-by blood banks where the type was available.
“We could save Kundan due to this medical information exchange facility,” said Dr. Kothari. “We needed two units of AB+ blood group urgently. And this facility provided us right information promptly. That saved the critical time and the boy was saved,” he added.
This is perhaps only one of 6000 such cases that received timely help via SMS – a service run by Missameal Trust, a charitable organisation, that launched this facility for Gujarat in July last year. Missameal Trust has been set up by a group of professionals — retired Air Force officers, doctors, management consultants and educationists. It works in the field of healthcare and education. “For this get blood via sms project, the trust had signed an MOU with Indian Red Cross Society, Gujarat branch. “It has also set up blood stock portal with the help of Gujarat State Council for Blood Transfusion,” said Air Marshal PK Desai, managing trustee of Missameal Trust. “Under this project, the control room obtains daily status of blood stock of all the 120 blood banks in the state and posts it on the website – www.gscbt.org. Anyone in Gujarat in need of blood can get concrete information and contact details of the nearest blood banks where the required blood group is available, either through internet or by calling the control room,” said Desai. The information is also available by texting Blood Group
“The maximum use of this service is done by doctors,” said Desai, adding, “We have served total 6000 emergency cases from various places in state including Vadodara, Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Jamnangar and Valsad.” The trust gets about 30 smses per day. With this, the trust has compiled a voluntary blood donor data. And with blood information over sms, we are also to start service of giving blood donor data to the person in need.” Explaining the pilot project, Desai said, the trust now sends the details of number of units of particular blood type that is required – is available at particular nearby blood banks. With, this soon the sender would also get the list of voluntary donors of the particular blood group residing in near-by area.
“This facility giving prompt information of blood group available at particular blood bank has undoubtedly helped us to serve and save many patients during their critical moments,” said Dr. Deepak Malhotra, nuero surgeon and assistant professor of neurology at Civil Hospital. “Having concrete details and information of voluntary blood donors available in nearby areas would certainly make a revolutionary change,” said Malhotra.
The trust has also started providing information for particular blood components and its special requirements. “Under, the Donor database service, the sender would get the list of registered donors from particular area and the register donors also would be informed the specific blood requirements at a particular hospital in the nearby area,” informed Desai. “This facility is under testing and its pilot project is ready,” he added.
