Journalism of Courage
Blood Stem Cell Donors Registry (Datri), a non-profit organisation that facilitates the saving of lives of those suffering from life threatening blood disorders, on Thursday organised an event to celebrate their first successful adult-to-adult Blood stem cell transplant in India. The event took place at The Shantai Hotel, Blood Stem cells from an unrelated donor come to the rescue of a 28-year-old diagnosed with Leukemia.
It was an emotional meeting for the 28 years old (male) Blood stem cell recipient working in Pune and the 25-year-old (male) donor from Kochi who met for the first time. The recipient was suffering from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a form of blood cancer for which blood stem cell transplant was the only option.
Speaking on the occasion, the hemato oncologist Dr. Sameer Melinkeri, who treated the patient and performed the transplant traced the advances that have occurred in the treatment of blood-related disorders over the years in India. He said “These advances have rendered the process of blood stem cell donation, through PBSC, extremely safe for the donors and given a new lease of life to patients in India”.
Raghu Rajagopal, Co-founder & CEO, DATRI said, “There are more than 20 million registered donors in the world. However in India, because of low awareness levels, the donors are not coming forward. As a result there are very few registered donors. DATRI has created a database of 70000 voluntary donors from diverse ethnic backgrounds and has successfully facilitated 79 transplants. DATRI has tied up with 10 hospitals and a number of transplant centres across the country.”
Thereafter the recipient was led into the room to meet his donor for the first time. It was a heart rending moment when the recipient hugged the donor while tears flew unrestrained for the mother and there were many moist eyes in the audience. After he had calmed down a bit the recipient Mayur Bargaje turned towards the donor Aby John and said “It’s an amazing feeling for me to come face to face with you for the first time, you are the real hero in my life.”
Continuing Mayur said, ” I would not have been here had it not been for the untiring efforts of Dr. Sameer, the blood stem cell donor Aby , Datri and all my friends who raised the money that was required in extremely challenging circumstances. I must specially thank Sidhu Kshetri who punched a boxing bag for 52 hours continuously in Sambhaji Park to raise donations from the public since all our family funds had been eroded in previous treatment.
Expressing his feelings, the donor said, “Donating stem cells doesn’t affect a donor’s health is a fact unknown to many. It is the best feeling in the world to save a life and be responsible to our community.”
