Let us see what May had in store for us at Sankalp.
Rakta Kranti
In February and March we promised to work towards fighting blood shortage in summers. Months of preparation and hard work indeed led to a shortage less summer so far. It was a new record for Sankalp when we collected total of 2630 units in 24 camps in the month of May.
i) National Law School: We organized first camp in National Law on 3rd May. An awareness session before the camp helped in good publicity and motivation of students. 55 units were collected in the camp which was organized after 5 months in the college. Samples were also taken for Thalassemia screening and many students came forward for this. A team of volunteers from college was present throughout the camp and helped in form filling and registration of students.
ii) Wipro: A series of blood donation camps were organized in different locations of Wipro Bangalore and Mysore. A total of 5 camps were organized in Wipro Sarjapur Road, Electronic City, Koramangala, Pritech Park and Mysore locations.
On 6th May, a camp was held in Sarjapur 1 location. It is a corporate office for Wipro with employee strength of about 1000 people. Camp saw a very good response with huge donor turnout throughout the day. The venue, though properly ventilated, but lacked AC. So the room became very hot post lunch and several donors had to be sent back after form filling. 142 units were collected in the camp with more than 250 people turning up.
First blood camp was organized in Wipro Koramangala location on 13th May. Good support from company and venue being very visible made sure most of the employees got to know about the event and came forward to donate. 80 people came forward with 60 of them eligible to donate.
2 day camp was organized in Wipro EC location on 14th and 15th May. This is the location with close to 15000 employees and blood donation camps here always see a huge rush of people coming forward to donate. 473 units were collected in 2 days and distributed across 4 different blood banks. Camp was a big respite for patients throughout the city in this period of summer shortage.
Wipro Pritech Park, Bellandur organized a camp on 16th May. The venue for the camp was cafeteria. Even on a Friday, there was a very good response from people who kept coming throughout the day. 92 units were collected in the event. A spacious venue and great work by blood bank ensured that no donor had any discomfort in this camp. We had just one case of delayed bleeding which is much better than the average of around 3%.
Wipro, Mysore is organizing a camp from the past 8 years. The organisation enables a powerful publicity campaign that helps a lot in motivating people and camp publicity. 150 people came forward for this noble cause and 113 units were collected, making the overall collection from Wipro as 880 units in the month!
iii) Novo Nordisk: First Sankalp camp was organized in Novo Nordisk on 6th May. Company did a great job in promoting the event and it resulted in good donor turnout of 143 people. 89 of them were eligible to donate. Volunteers from company were present throughout and company also provided apples to all the donors.
iv) Citrix: On 7th May, first camp by Sankalp was organized in Citrix. Publicity for the camp had started 2 week's before and even though the floor talk was not allowed, company volunteers had gone and spoken to people for camp, distributed brochures. All this helped in good donor motivation and the company crossed 100 units collection for the first time. 116 units were collected in the event.
v) General Motors: Fifth blood donation camp was organized in General Motors on 8th May. It was a very good drive with 232 units collected and distributed to 2 blood banks. Company volunteers were present throughout the camp and helped with registrations and crowd management. Very good support from company and well designed posters for publicity ensured a good donor flow and smooth running camp throughout the day.
vi) Bangalore Ascenders: BASC is an organization that registers donors and sends them to blood bank once every month. This time the even was organized in Bowring hospital blood bank. 13 people turned up on Saturday, 10th May and 10 of these donated blood.
vii) Infosys BPO: While the nation was glued to the TV/internet watching the numbers of the general election in excitement and anticipation, there was a small buzz away from the heated discussions of the polls in Infosys where voluntary donors were queueing up to donate blood. The blood donation drive organised on the campus saw 135 donors come forward to donate. After robust screening and medical examination 120 donors were able to give their gift of life.
viii) Indian Institute of Sciences: IISC organizes regular blood donation camps but only on the days of national importance like Republic Day and Independence Day. This was the first time that student council was convinced to organize a camp during summers to help the city in shortage period. An awareness session was done a day before where students were informed about camp. Camp day saw a huge donor turnout which was better than expected. 155 students came forward and 127 were able to donate. With the student council convinced and happy with the idea of camps on non-important days, we can hope that it would become a culture in IISC to organize regular camps during shortage period.
ix) HP: HP organizes regular camps every year. This time one of the HP locations were given to us and we organized a camp on 20th May. Company was extremely supportive. Great response. 20-25 people were sent back after resource were exhausted. Usually a drive with 80 units, this time we hit 139. Good support from company volunteers. They were present throughout and managed pre donation and form filling.
x) Altisource: A series of camps were organized in 3 locations of Altisource. 312 units were collected overall.
On 22nd May, Altisource, Pritech Park organized their first ever camp. Ocwen employees also participated in the event. Camp saw a great response from both the companies and collected 187 precious units of blood. Talking to donors on the day before camp, putting banners in the cafeteria and camp venue being very visible (on the way to cafe), helped in great publicity and increased donor motivation.
Altisource, Velankani Tech Park organized a drive on 23rd May. Their employee strength has reduced significantly from the past year and it affected the no of units collected as well. 76 people came forward and 66 units collected in the event.
A camp was organized in Altisource, Koramangala location on 30th May. This camp saw a very poor response initially. Only about 15 units were collected in first 2 hours. Later company allowed for floor talk and several people joined in. The camp got extended to more than 2 hours to accommodate more donors and blood bank cooperated well. 59 units were collected with the final donor bled at 9:30 pm.
xi) Continental: First Sankalp drive was organized in Continental on 23rd May. Excellent publicity done by company. There were LCD screens where Sankalp presentation was played for past 1-2 week. Questions related to blood donation were being displayed. All posters were used. As soon as first lady donated, her photo was taken and being displayed on all the screens within 10 mins. All this helped in motivating people. 141 donations happened in a company with employee strength of just 400 which is incredible!
xii) Hop On Gurlz: Hop on Gurlz is a biker's group of girls. They organized their second camp with Sankalp on Sunday, 25th May. A team of young, enthusiastic girls made a significant contribution to voluntary blood donation. These girls not only spread the message of a voluntary blood donation like wild fire to a lot of biker groups and friends across the city, they also went on streets and convinced people that blood donor heroes are required during summers to make a difference. For example, one person had come all the way from Chennai because he was associated with this group. A second boy, who was motivated and educated by this team donated on his 18th birthday. Volunteers also helped in having all processes in place for the blood donation drive. In total more than 115 people came in to donate. 89 units of blood were collected at Rashotrothan Blood bank.
xiii) AMD: AMD organized 13th Blood donation camp on 27th May. This is one of the few organizations where a camp is organized once every 4 months. As always there was a great support from company and camp saw a good donor turnout. 84 units of life saving blood were collected in the event.
xiv) Alcon: First camp was organized in Alcon on 27th May. The camp timings could've been better as most of the employees in this company are present in the morning shift, while we had an afternoon camp. The camp was open to other companies as well and a lot of people from Huawei came forward for this noble cause. Announcements were done to motivate and inform blood donors. 54 units were collected in the camp.
xv) GTL: GTL is a organization with about 200 employees, most of whom work in field. They organized their first blood camp on 28th May. About 25 people had registered for the camp. A few others joined in on the day of event. 17 units were collected with 31 total registrations.
xvi) Tata Elxsi: Tata Elxsi organized camp in both the locations on 30th May. 121 units were collected in Hoodi and 44 in Brigade Tech Park location. Company was very supportive with one volunteer present throughout in both the locations. Banner was placed in cafeteria for publicity. Though the venue was not AC, table fans were provided and it helped reduce donor complications. With better publicity, even better turnout can be expected from the company as there are about 1500 employees in Hoodi location alone.
Tech Team
Like always, the technology team assists other team of the organisation improve their processes, manage data and streamline operations. Needless to say the teams keep the tech folks very busy. So let' see what we have been up-to.
The technical team is of Sankalp is working upon modernising donor registration process to ensure that the screening for donors is more protocol driven, less prone to error and more convenient for the donors. Phase-wise trials are under-way to establish a process of electronic screening of donors.
ThalCare, the software platform used by Sankalp for management of Thalassemia is becoming more power packed. The recent inclusions include enhanced weekly and monthly reports, introduction of task management system for each patient, automation of chelation dose calculation, introduction of more flags and alerts especially relating of adverse medical condition and per patient automatic report generation based upon specific needs.
Thalassemia Prevention, Management and Care
The month of May started with a thalassemia screening camp at NLSIU where a total of 104 students came forward to get tested. On completion of the screening 6 individuals with trait of one or the other hemoglobin disorder were identified. 6% is a rather high number especially for Bangalore but the sample size small. There are no labs doing end to end thalassemia screening at costs which are justifiable for mass screening. The need of the hour is to at least make the option of streamlined mass screening viable in Bangalore - which will be a big step forward as far as prevention of thalassemia is concerned.
World thalassemia day was celebrated on 8th May. Team Sankalp focussed on channelising it's energy into strengthening the management of the disorder for all children. Any resources that were available were diverted towards the same goal. Project Samraksha, the thalassemia day care supported by Sankalp did organise an elaborate program for the occasion., games were organsied for the kids, some of them performed on stage and the families were educated about thalassemia management. With a sumptuous lunch to top it all, the children had a wonderful time.
A lot of time in the month of May was about tailoring and validation of the therapy being given to the children. at our day care centers. A thorough audit was carried out with the aim of better adjusting the chelation doses, ensuring the serological and biochemical tests are done for all and promptly updated, check compliance and effectiveness of the transfusion therapy etc. The latest addition to our day care center leuko depletion filters which are now available at subsidised rates.
Summers are here and the stage is set and the time has come to implement the plans.
Emergency Wing and Disha
After a brief period of fewer requests 7 Bombay blood group requests were received in the month of May - each one for multiple units of blood. Beside Karnataka there were Bombay blood requests from Delhi, Vijaywada, Bilaspur, Mumbai and Rajkot. This kept the emergency team very busy.
At the same time the blood help-line was buzzing throughout the month. Unlike previous years, with proper planning, most large blood bank had regular supply of blood even through the lean summer period. This made sure that the summer shortage period did not start in Bangalore. The scenario outside Bangalore was like every other year. Lower blood stocks all across North Karnataka were observed and the impact was seen in the higher number of blood requests from the region.
We are looking at opportunities to support voluntary platelet apheresis in a non-profit set-up. Past years have seen that during certain months there is massive demand for platelets. The high cost of single donor platelet(SDP) is a matter of concern and we hope that at least 1 institution will start this on a non-profit basis.