Online blood bank to help faster, easier reach

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Now, blood donation has been made faster and easier.

A new web portal www.indianbloodbank.com [2] has been launched, helping patients anywhere in the country get required services within 24 hours and also through which interested donors can register themselves and donate.

A joint initiative of the Indian Blood Bank Society, of which cine actor Mohanlal is the brand ambassador, and the ‘act for humanity’, the portal is developed with specific technical features such as free e-call system, used for the first time in a blood bank.

“The software developed indigenously for the first time allows a visitor to the portal to make a free telephone call to a donor and request the services. Besides it also facilitates the patient to send e-mail or SMS to the donor,” project Manager Sooraj P. Suresh said.

Earlier, former health minister Adoor Prakash inaugurated the facility at a function at IMA house here. Actor Mohanlal and magician R.K. Malayath were present.

“We have taken our initial step to move forward with the vision to be the best online blood bank with most accurate data collection of blood donors in a limited time. Already, data of around 10,000 willing donors have been updated,” he said.

The minister said now the public could get rare blood groups through the initiative as donors (16 blood groups) had been classified district and area wise so as to locate the nearest one.

Helping the needy with blood

Their own bad experiences with life turned them into Good Samaritans. Raveendran Panamkura (Kozhikode), Renjith S. Pillai (Kollam) and T.R.Rajeev Menon (Ernakulam), who won this year’s awards of the Indian Blood Bank Society, say the awards apart, the society’s indifferent attitude to help a person in need has prompted them to go an extramile for the cause of blood donation.

“Back in 1973, I witnessed a youth dying at the Kozhikode Medical College as no one came forward to donate rare O-Negative blood in time. For the first time in my life I saw a doctor crying as his patient died. I remember the doctor asking every patient in the ward to donate blood. I made it a point to keep my word to him,” said Panamkura, who completed a century (115 times) in blood donation.

Currently, he heads an NGO that has over 26,000 members. One of the beneficiaries was actor Jagathy, when NIMS hospital authorities were running for ‘AB negative’ blood. “Luckily I could arrange 18 willing donors in eight hours,” he says.