Blood donation via the cyber highway

All that Khushroo Poacha needed to set up an e-social service website indianblooddonors.com, was a second hand computer and some hard-earned funds in March 2000. Seven years later, the website now has 45,000 donors registered from all over the country and can get blood donated to a needy patient in any part of the country in less than 30 minutes.

“There is always a shortage of blood. Many a times, surgeries have been held up as there is shortage of negative (rare) blood groups,” said the Nagpur-based Poacha.

“An open heart surgery, for instance, requires five to six units of blood. It is next to impossible for the patient or the patient’s relative, who is already under great stress, to arrange for so much blood at a short notice. That is where indianblooddonors.com comes in,” he explained.

Here’s how the website functions: Any healthy person interested in donating blood can register on the site, providing details like his name, age, blood group, residential address and contact number. A needy patient or a patient’s relative can access the site and put in a request.

An SMS is then sent to a donor located close to the hospital where the blood needs to be donated as well as to the needy patient, informing him about the identity of the patient.

Poacha says he receives the maximum number of requests from Mumbai. According to the good Samaritan, the youth of the country are the ones who are motivated to donate blood.

“Blood donation drives in colleges are the main source of blood donation in the country. This is why, there is acute shortage of blood in the summer months, since all colleges are closed,” pointed out Poacha.