100% voluntary blood donation? City says yes

Indore: The city is truly following this year's World Blood Donor Day's theme "Blood connects us all" and pushing boundaries to achieve 100% voluntary blood donation
Through Whatsapp groups created by Indoreans and state's biggest blood banks Facebook page, voluntary blood donation has shot-up by nearly 40% in the city in last four years.
Rakt Archana, Rakt Data Samooh, IPS blood donors group and Raqta group are few such voluntary Whatsapp groups run by people of Indore that caters to blood requirement of the needy patients.Rakt Archana group, an initiative run by Indore-based 30-year-old finance company employee Ujjwal Lad, does more than 40 donations in Indore alone.
More than 10,000 potential blood donors are connected across the country. "In 2006, I heard that a nine-day old baby desperately needed blood. He had jaundice and needed O- blood, a rare blood group. Since my blood group is O-, one of my resident doctor friends asked me to donate blood. This pushed me further," said Lad while talking to TOI. He added saying that the group was initiated from Orkut and now has more than sixty Whatsapp groups across the country, all dedicated to the cause of finding and donating blood. Every group has at least 200 donors.
"Indore alone has 12 such groups," Lad said. Transport trader, Ankur Barjatiya who started voluntary blood donation group on her daughter's birthday in 2009 gets at least one call every day. He said, "More than 2,500 donors have connected with us for voluntary donation."
The blood bank at MY Hospital received nearly 3,000 units of blood last year only through requirements posted on social media.
MY Hospital blood bank incharge, Dr Ashok Yadav said, "We have seen a rising trend of voluntary blood donation after we posted blood requirement on social media via Facebook. People are donating blood on their birthdays, marriage reception etc."
Dr Yadav added saying that in last financial year we held nearly 200 blood donation camps and collected 25,000 units of blood. Out of the total collected units, 18,000 were from voluntary donors.