CHENNAI: The banquet hall at Savera Hotel was filled with loud chatter and excitement of children between ages six to twelve. We were at the ten-year anniversary of DATRI, a Blood Stem Donors Registry.
The room fell silent when Dr Ravathi Raj, haematologist, walked onto the stage. “Ten years back, I found out about DATRI at a conference in Vellore. And the way Dr Raghu Rajagopal, co-founder and director of DATRI, spoke of what his idea, we were all very inspired and onboard from day one. We have had cases where one of the children had a relapse of leukaemia.
On the day we had planned to start the transfusion, the donor left in a hurry because of family disagreements. We weren’t able to find a match for the marrow of the child and approached DATRI. They found us the stem cell we needed at the right time and helped us save the child,” she said. The hall echoed with applause.
The organisation has helped save over 640 patients who required blood transfusions in the last ten years. Of those, they had invited 20 survivors to the event. Everyone at the conference was given identity cards, a few children wore cards that read ‘Survivor’ and the others had ‘Supporter’ on their cards.
On the other side of the hall, a group of people sat together wearing identity cards that said ‘Donor’. “We have seven patients here, who will meet their donors for the first time,” said Raghu, as some parents looked expectantly at the group of ‘Donors’.
Co-founder and chairman Dr Nezih Cereb said, “We are like a family. Everyone has made this initiative very personal. We are all waiting for the moment when our little patients here meet their donors. It gives us so much happiness when we see them smile,” he said.
Soo Young Yang, third Co-founder at DATRI couldn’t be present. As of now, DATRI has over 4,20,000 registered donors.