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.
Due to frequent employee changes, the frequency of daily stocks update also fell significantly. The project to make the blood helpline a single point of contact for all Sankalp activities also suffered due to lack of a streamlined approach and changing RCEs. While the core task of managing the helpline and handling calls was done, the team plans to fix these loopholes in the upcoming year.
While the requests were managed, there are several other reasons why Bombay Blood Group Network continues to remain a success story -
• Bombaybloodgroup.org was publicised in AP, TN, Pondicherry and Kerela. The team received response from around 30 Blood banks and also many new donors added to our list. There was also a spike in number of request being received from AP during January to March 2015. Requests were received not only from big cities like Hyderbad, Vizag but also from small towns like Ongle.
• Paper on 'Managing Rare Blood Group Requests- Bombay Oh Phenotype: Our Experience with www.bombaybloodgroup.org' was submitted to 2 journals Asian Journal of Transfusion Science and Blood Transfusion. It was accepted by Blood Transfusion.
• Bombay Blood Group Meet was organised on 15th June 2014. It was attended by 6 Donors. 2 of them had come for the first time. This meeting was organised with little resource and time.
• 3 units of Bombay Blood Group blood were transported to Jamshedpur to cater to an emergency.
• Numerous Bombay Blood Group donors have started registering on the site. Few donated as well.
• The Twitter handle for Bombay Blood Group has started attracting Blood group requests floating in social media.
Overall, the Emergency Wing had a fulfilling year. While all the basic tasks were done, a lack in proactive approach to bring processes and remain progressive was felt. As the team steps into another year, the volunteers have set clear roadmaps to take its learning from the previous year and define the years to come.
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. But, when it comes to simplifying blood search for the needy at large, the team did not meet the expectations it had set for itself. Although the number of calls coming to the helpline dropped over the year, but come summer, the helpline’s engagement picked up like never before. Apart from calls to helpline getting handled, the other good things that happened include getting an extra employee to cover 12 hours of calls daily. Technology remained the biggest backbone in running the helpline. The newly integrated SMS gateway was well received both by callers and the team. The team was also able to actively provide skill development for Response Center Executive to handle more complex blood requests. Although the changing employee situation resulted in little of the knowledge transfer culminate into real work. Among the not so good things, the biggest worry was a drop in the average number of calls which reached the helpline. A lack of initiative from the team to patch up the problem with proactive awareness campaigns was felt. 67% of all calls were from Bangalore, which is a sizeable increase from last year’s 61%. The need for the helpline reach beyond the city in a big way was felt.
Due to frequent employee changes, the frequency of daily stocks update also fell significantly. The project to make the blood helpline a single point of contact for all Sankalp activities also suffered due to lack of a streamlined approach and changing RCEs. While the core task of managing the helpline and handling calls was done, the team plans to fix these loopholes in the upcoming year.
Handling Emergencies
Emergency Wing continued to take blood requests, fight summer shortages, build skill and potential for transfusion medicine research and build network for Bombay Blood Group. What makes the team powerful is a functional helpline, a team of experienced volunteers who possess a thorough understanding of transfusion medicine, its credibility with donors and blood banks especially in cases of Bombay blood group requirements, availability of backup volunteers who can speak Kannada, 24*7 availability of at least one volunteer, strong database for Bombay blood group even from small cities, availability blood stock data publically, and platelets donors registry. The team, however, witnessed a shortage of volunteers, insufficient meetings, lack of documentation, and lack of active SDP database. While all emergency blood requests were catered to on time, the need to bring processes and train more volunteers was felt. The team plans to take this up in the upcoming year.Bombay Blood Group Network
In total, 38 blood requests were received for the rare blood group from across the country. The team was successful this year in collaborating with other organisations to use Bombay blood group site for request and donor management and also making it a one stop information center and discussion forum for Bombay blood group individuals. The organizations which partnered include Mumbai’s Think Foundation and several blood banks from Karnataka. The year also witnessed a scientific paper on Bombay blood group by the Emergency Wing getting accepted in Blood transfusion journal.
While the requests were managed, there are several other reasons why Bombay Blood Group Network continues to remain a success story -
• Bombaybloodgroup.org was publicised in AP, TN, Pondicherry and Kerela. The team received response from around 30 Blood banks and also many new donors added to our list. There was also a spike in number of request being received from AP during January to March 2015. Requests were received not only from big cities like Hyderbad, Vizag but also from small towns like Ongle.
• Paper on 'Managing Rare Blood Group Requests- Bombay Oh Phenotype: Our Experience with www.bombaybloodgroup.org' was submitted to 2 journals Asian Journal of Transfusion Science and Blood Transfusion. It was accepted by Blood Transfusion.
• Bombay Blood Group Meet was organised on 15th June 2014. It was attended by 6 Donors. 2 of them had come for the first time. This meeting was organised with little resource and time.
• 3 units of Bombay Blood Group blood were transported to Jamshedpur to cater to an emergency.
• Numerous Bombay Blood Group donors have started registering on the site. Few donated as well.
• The Twitter handle for Bombay Blood Group has started attracting Blood group requests floating in social media.
Overall, the Emergency Wing had a fulfilling year. While all the basic tasks were done, a lack in proactive approach to bring processes and remain progressive was felt. As the team steps into another year, the volunteers have set clear roadmaps to take its learning from the previous year and define the years to come.
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