Due to a patriotic fervour gripping the city around Independence day the number of blood donation drives in were far too many. At such times, Sankalp takes a stand not to organise too many drives. This ensures a balanced supply of blood without overloading and leading to possible wastage. Hence in the month of August, the team organised only 7 blood donation drives leading to a collection of 603 units of blood. The rate of adverse events was quite high compared to other months in the year and was about 4%.
Counselling donors is an important and integral part of blood banking. Counsellors have various roles to play in the blood banking setup. In voluntary blood donation drives, a counsellor plays the role of speaking to the donor before blood donation where he/she encourages the donor to donate and gets an assurance that required pre donation criteria is met. Any questions/concerns related to blood donation (apart from medical issues which shall be addressed by the doctor), should also to be answered by the counsellor.
The year began with merger of Project Disha and Emergency Wing, the two teams inclined towards making blood accessible and available to the needy. It was felt that it would be logistically easier if the two, otherwise separately perceived teams, worked in cohesion.
The Helpline Situation
The helpline is believed to be critical to Sankalp’s progress as an organisation. Running the helpline without problems means that the basic purpose of the organisation gets fulfilled – helping people with blood. To this extent the team did perform.
A new hope, a new silver lining has surfaced for little children suffering from the pain and burden of thalassemia. A new Bone Marrow Transplantation unit (BMT) with an exclusive focus towards treating thalassemia children has been jointly established by Sankalp India Foundation, Cure2Children and People Tree Hospitals at Bengaluru. This unit is the one of the two centers in the country and first of its kind in South India, that has an exclusive focus on thalassemia and is setup on a Not For Profit basis.
Dengue continued to be the biggest challenge to deal with for all teams at Sankalp. For Rakta Kranti, it was to maintain a steady supply of blood in the city. The plan was to have atleast 15-20 blood donation drives in this period. However, in total 13 blood donation drives were organized by the team leading to a collection of 1078 units of blood.
Dengue continued to be the biggest challenge to deal with for all teams at Sankalp. For Rakta Kranti, it was to maintain a steady supply of blood in the city. The plan was to have atleast 15-20 blood donation drives in this period. However, in total 13 blood donation drives were organized by the team leading to a collection of 1078 units of blood.