KOCHI: Driven by the mission that not a single life is lost for want of blood, the All-Kerala Blood Donors Association (AKBDA) has started a novel ‘Blood-on-Whatsapp’ service to help arrange donors in no time.
All one needs to do is send a text message with the name, address, blood group and the purpose to the Whatsapp number 8086529275.
The move is aimed to give blood to those residing within the state and in the UAE.
At present, AKBDA has over 45,000 donors (80 per cent of them between 18-25) in the state and over 4,000 abroad.
“We have set up an office at Nettoor, near here, for coordinating the messages coming via WhatsApp. On receiving the message, we will return the call and seek details. We will then contact a donor from our data base and direct him to the blood bank nearest to where the patient resides,” said P M Jaffar, founder and general secretary, AKBDA.
He said the requirement will also be shared to all the donors in the patient’s locality via the ‘broadcast message’ facility in WhatsApp. “It will also be forwarded to our district coordinators to avoid lag,” he said.
AKBDA, active in the field for the past four years, has helped over 20,000 patients.
“We had been operating the network through telephone calls but with the rise in the number of callers, it became impossible to attend every call. Besides, the process of collecting details makes it more time-consuming. Hence we decided to switch to the latest technology,” Jaffar added.
Welcoming the initiative, Praveen G Pai, a senior public health specialist with Lakeshore Hospital in the city, said there are limits to stocking blood.