Journalism of Courage
A system to create an electronic directory of blood donors,developed by the Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohaematology (ISBTI),a non-profit voluntary organisation,will be launched for the first time in India on Thursday,June 14 the World Blood Donor Day.
The directory will help blood banks to store and maintain a minimum level of inventory of all blood groups which will eventually eliminate the burden on patients and their attendants,said Dr Yudhbir Singh Khyalia president,ISBTI. The aim is to achieve 100 per cent voluntary blood donation,he added.
On receiving the SMS,the electronic registry will send an SMS asking donors blood group (ABO / Rh),age,sex,area,city with pin-code number and number of donations.
If one has donated blood earlier,the service will ask the donor the date of the last donation and the preferred blood bank. When there is a need of blood matching the donors group at a blood bank near the donors address the service will ask the donor whether he/she is available for blood donation at that time. Some information regarding eligibility for donation is asked through SMS template. If the donor is available and eligible to donate,he /she will be requested to donate blood. Joshi said.
Sanjay Gupta,chief operating officer,ISBTI,said this service is fully automated and available 24×7 to all registered blood banks in the country free-of-cost. Aligned to this project,ISBTI is also in the process of launching Indias largest online database of blood donors in collaboration with HITECH,Pune and Netrum Foundation,Delhi.
