News and Updates for December 2014

Rakta Kranti

December was a busy month in anticipation of the winter shortage. In all 12 blood donation drives were organized in December collecting 1223 units or blood. Let’s have a look at each camp.

First camp in the month was organized at Sankalp Semiconductors. The camp showed what can be achieved by a group of motivated volunteers who believe in the cause. Sankalp Semiconductors is an organization with less than 100 employees. But they kept the camp open for all the companies in their building and put up posters across all the floors. They also spread the word through a team of volunteers. Result of all this effort could be seen on camp day when more than 110 people turned up for the camp and 88 units were collected. They gave a dairy milk chocolate to all the donors as a token of gratitude.

Krishna Greens society near Vidyaranyapura organizes regular camps with us annually. This year, the camp was organized on 7th December. People from nearby society and locality also participated in the event making it a big success. In all 67 people came forward to donate and 45 units were collected in the event.

Seventh blood donation camp was organized by KPIT on 9th Dec. The organization has been supporting the cause of voluntary blood donation since past several years, but this was the first time when a camp was organized at a gap of 6 months. Even though the response was average at start, there was a sudden surge of donors post lunch. Reminder mails were sent throughout the camp day and it proved effective. 142 people turned up for the event. 117 could donate after going through the pre donation screening.

Xentrix Studios organized camps at both its locations on 10th & 11th Dec. A very enthusiastic team ensured that the blood donation drive at both the locations was a delight to be part of. A steady queue of donors came through the day keeping the blood bank team busy and happy collecting blood. We were happy to see several repeat donors who have donated in the previous drives organised by Sankalp India Foundation.

At the Pritech location, there were about 25 registrations done beforehand by the HR. On spot floor talk by bringing all the employees at one place helped in donor motivation and subsequently increase in count.

42 units were collected at Bagmane and 41 units at Pritech Tech Park.

Camps were organized at CGI E-City and Cyber Park locations on 10th Dec, 2014. Both the camps were extremely well organized and well supported by company. This time donor turnout and response from company was much better than before. A great team of volunteers ensured that proper queue management is going on and all the donors rest properly. These volunteers were assigned batches of 1-2 hours each and all of them worked with great enthusiasm at their slotted time.

A good support from blood banks ensured that both the camps run smoothly without any break. Blood banks going for lunch in batches without stopping camp, was much appreciated by company.

178 units were collected at E-City and 92 at Cyber Park.

HP supported our cause by organizing a camp at their Suryawaves location on 11th Dec. Even though flu vaccination drives were planned in this month, the company understood the critical need of blood during shortage period and planned the camp such that people are not deferred due to vaccination.

The camp was supposed to start at 10 am but people started coming and filling up forms from 9:30 am onward. Such was the enthusiasm of people that we registered close to 100 people by 12 noon itself! Company volunteers were present for complete duration of camp and helped blood bank by writing certificates and giving juices. More than 170 people turned up to donate blood. 118 units were collected in the camp.

Emtech organized first blood donation camp on 16th Dec. Its a small organization with about 60 employees but camp was open to all the companies within Sai Arcade and even open for general public. For publicity, posters were used. Banner was placed outside. A motivational session was organized on previous week's Friday that helped in clearing doubts and misconceptions about blood donation. 35 units of precious blood was collected in the camp.

First blood donation camp was organized at Next Edge on 17th Dec. Brochures were distributed in cafeteria to create awareness about the event. 37 units were collected in the camp.

Wipro has always supported the blood donation cause by organizing 2 camps a year across all its locations. On 18th Dec, a camp was organized at Wipro Pritech. Though posters were put up, banners were used and emails were sent to employees regularly, camp had a very poor donor turnout. Last Friday before year end vacations was the reason that most people were out of office and in a festive mood. This location generally sees 80-100 units collected in one day. But this time only 25 units could be collected.

Tata Powers organized fourth camp with us on 23rd Dec. The camp at Tata Power is always marked by active participation on enthusiastic volunteers. In all 72 units were collected in the camp.

Emergency Wing

The networking of blood banks across the whole of South India with the BombayBloodGroup.Org was initiated in December. Several blood banks responses to the request to join the network and returned their consent for participation. We also got information about several Bombay blood group donors in far and wide corners of the states. The month of January will continue to push this activity further.

As is usual, we continued to receive requests for platelet apheresis and occasionally for other groups which were not available off the shelf and the same were attended to.

Disha: The Blood Helpline

While Bangalore was the source of about 60% of all the blood requests received in December, Dharwad, Mysore, Davanagere, Bijapur, Belgaum, Shimoga, Gulbarga, Gadag, Bagalkot and Uttar Kannada were also sources for a number of requests. The month was unique in the sense that we got blood requests from all 27 districts of Karnataka.

The annual ritual of sending the sticker and information about the blood help line to all the hospitals of the states will be undertaken in January. This strengthens and reinforces the blood helpline. Also noteworthy was the fact that the demand for platelets came down in December, marking an end of the periodic shortage of platelets.

Thalassemia Day Care

A record within the center was created in the month of December when 341 transfusions were undertaken for 237 patient visits at Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health. The average pre-transfusion hemoglobin was 8.5 gm/dl. At Samrkasha, we had 176 visits with 216 transfusions. At both the centres the degree of compliance to the period medical investigations was high. With the stabalisation of the current services at the day care, next set of challenges are being planned for both the centres.