VIJAYAWADA: Saturday was a special day for young doctor Bharath Suryadevara of Vijayawada. He was greeted by a smiling P B Barathy from Tamil Nadu, whose life he saved by donating blood stem cells. At an event organised by Datri, which brings donors of stem cells and recipients on a single platform, the two met in the presence of their family members and volunteers of the foundation.
Barathy, a mother of two from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, and was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL), a severe form of blood cancer in 2017. For months, she didn’t find a matching donor, either from any of her immediate family members or from her circle of friends. That is when she approached Datri Foundation in February 2018 and found in Bharath a donor.
Addressing the gathering, overcome with emotion, Barathy said, “I have hardly any words to express my feeling and thank my donor Bharath, who not only saved my life but also saved the future of my family. He gifted mother to my two children. Today I am happy to meet him on this beautiful occasion and he is now part of our family and will be in our prayers always. I am thankful to god for sending me a donor, while many are still waiting to find one. People should come forward to take this step and save lives.”
“I was happy to hear that I was a potential match for someone who needed blood stem cells. With encouragement from my family and having no room for doubts, I went ahead and donated stem cells. Now after meeting the person whose life has been saved with my small donation, I can’t express my happiness in words seeing her happy and healthy. This is certainly one of the biggest joys of my life and I would really encourage people to become donors and save lives,” said 25-year-old Bharath.
Like Barathy and Bharath, thousands of people have registered with Datri for donors and recipients of blood stem cells. Over one lakh people have registered with the organisation to donate stem cells and bone marrow to the needy patients.
Ch Ravindranath, who heads donor recruitment at Datri, AP chapter, said, “As per the registry protocol, the identity of the donors and recipients are kept confidential for one year. After one year we will arrange a meeting between them so that they become inspiration for more donors to come forward and register with the foundation for a noble cause. Till date, only 53,074 donors from AP have registered as donors.”
Dr Krishna Reddy, Medical Oncologist at Manipal Hospitals, said “Everyday, we see many patients suffering from fatal blood disorders, which can be cured with blood stem cell transplant. There is misgiving about donation of blood stem cells.”