Saving lives for free is their blood

Patna: Life turned upside down for the Singhs when Sunil Kumar was diagnosed with a liver disease last year. “I gladly stepped forward to donate blood,” recalls Kumhrar resident Sugandha, who came to the rescue of her 64-year-old uncle.
The elderly Singh was fortunate to have someone in the family with a similar blood group. In case of a patient with a negative blood group requiring blood transfusion, however, it’s like panic stations for attendants as availability is an issue.
Sexagenarian Rama Devi’s was a case in point. Prior to her high-risk cardiac surgery at a reputed Patna hospital last month, the doctors asked her attendants to arrange blood. None of them had their blood group B-negative.
Their helplessness did not last long, however. For, a friend’s friend Mukesh Hissariya spread the word, and at least six B-negative donors were over the phone, asking Rama’s kin when and where they should report to donate the blood.
Not that Hissariya coincidentally happened to know people with B-negative blood group. He has in fact launched a virtual blood bank that has brought together an army of voluntary donors and recipients on a common platform. The website — www.biharbloodbank.com — happened on October 1, 2011.
“The needy — or someone on behalf of the needy — upload their requests to the website and our registered donors respond to them... We have seen our donors rush even at odd hours to reach the help because everyone of them wears what you can say ‘a give-away-what-you-have-excess-of’ attitude’,” Hissariya says and points out ‘raktadaan’, in any case, is ‘mahadaan’.
Once adequate blood is donated, the ‘requisition’ is withdrawn from the site — of course, with a ‘Thank You All’ note.
The dotcom has 3,000-plus registered donors, who hail from different parts of Bihar. “These donors also remain connected with the help of 10 different WhatsApp groups to ensure speedy and easy access,” says the 44-year-old businessman who himself has donated blood 37 times.
That the needy pay an exorbitant price to acquire rare blood groups worries Hissariya. “Many a time, AB-negative, B-negative or O-negative blood is usually not on the shelf. Outsourced agencies and private blood banks ask for the moon in lieu of the supply,” he says and expresses gratitude to the donors associated with the virtual blood bank who not only do not charge even a single penny but also pay for their conveyance to and from the hospital.