Disha has now started taking in regular updates from the blood banks situated outside Bangalore. There are now 17 blood banks aligned with Disha. The indication of “the calm before the storm” as one of our volunteers addressed this situation; Disha had number of calls which rose up to 25 in a single day of which 8 calls were routed to Sankalp Emergency Wing. This serves as a clear indication of the rise in number of calls this summer and more blood requests for the Emergency team volunteers.
The awareness campaign which was taken up during last year, helped to increase the number of calls routed to Disha. Seeing the decline these days (except the sudden spike one day), and analyzing the hospitals from where the calls have dropped, and also targeting new hospitals awareness campaign about this helpline has again begun. ESI, Bowring, Vanivilas, Victoria, Dasappa Maternity hospital, NIMHANS, Sanjay Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Kidwai, Jayadeva and few maternity hospitals are a few to be named which were visited this time for awareness campaign.
On the Karnataka Wide Blood Search Network front work is proceeding at full speed. So far we have Bellary, Davangere, Dharwad, Gadag, Hubli, Mangalore, Manipal, Mysore, Shimoga and Udupi Districts of Karnataka attached to the helpline. By the time you get to read this newsletter we would have already networked the last two remaining centers of healthcare, Gulbarga and Raichur too. With almost 25 blood banks from across the state now networked to the helpline we are poised to ensure easy access to safe blood for all in the state of Karnataka.