Platelets do it!

Initiative by Mood Indigo, IIT Bombay to solve the platelet crisis of the city

Almost everyone must gone through the harrowing hassle of finding platelet donors for their near and dear ones in a medically critical situation. Even as we read this, thousands of patients do a tight rope walk between life and death just due to the absence of a sustainable model that ensures regular supply of platelets to the hospitals.

This is an issue which has been raised every year, problems have been reported, the troubles have been heard, but nothing concrete has been done to solve this. Mood Indigo in association with Think Foundation and the State Blood Transfusion council thus launched the initiative of ‘Lifesavers Club – Platelets Do it’ which aims to pull the city and its residents out of the platelet crisis. This initiative is supported by Health ministry of Maharashtra.

Platelets are a component of blood and help in its clotting. If the count of these disk-shaped cell fragments falls down, a person could bleed to death or develop other life threatening complications.

One of the major hurdles that one faces while solving this problem is that the shelf life of platelets is very less as compared to blood (5 days as compared to 45 days). Platelets to be transfused are classified into two – single donor platelets and random donor platelets. Random donor platelets (RDP) are obtained by centrifugation of blood whereas single donor platelets (SDP) are obtained by apheresis machine. While 300 mL of platelets are generally obtained by SDP method, only 35 mL are obtained by RDP.

Mood Indigo aims to have a continuous supply of platelets every day by SDP which will help solve the crisis. The youth of the city are the main target who will be roped in to tackle the problem. We have developed a separate website and a portal for this cause which will take in registrations from people all across the city and India. One may register as a donor or a manager. Preferences are taken from the donor and every effort is taken to allot the donor his preferred time. The manager will be there to manage the donors and maintain their enthusiasm towards the cause. The manager will be selected on the basis of his abilities and experiences. This cause is designed as a club in which regular gatherings and dine outs will be held. A person becomes a part of the lifesavers club as soon as he makes the first donation. Another hurdle of transportation will also be taken care of by arranging for an air conditioned cab to ferry the donor to the hospital and back to his residence/ college. The managers will also have to carry our awareness drives for the cause and micro-manage situations when the donor is not available. He will be given access to the database of all the people who have registered as donors for the cause. He won’t have to go through the annoying routine of manually planning out the itenary of the donors, thanks to the online portal. The manager will be rewarded by certificates from Mantralaya and SBTC for his contribution. The lifesavers get to reap benefits from Mood I as well.

“A slurry of social causes supported by colleges and their fests floods the entire student circuit in the country every year. Some of them are onetime events that create a buzz and die out, some of them aim for mass awareness, some of them re emphasize the already known facts about an issue and there are some which actually create a tangible impact on the society and make the participants feel like harbingers of change” said Abhirath Sharma, the spokesperson of the fest.

Think Foundation is an organization which has championed the cause of blood donation and Thallesemia over the years and has made blood scarcity a forgone issue to worry about. In fact, today Mumbai is more than self sufficient in blood. “Platelet is something that needs attention” says Vinay Shetty, Vice President of Think Foundation.

Exploring a new social media tool

As social media becomes the primary tool for promoting brands and raking more profits, IITians are exploring new tools online for giving back to the society. “Social media is getting polluted these days with too much information from a lot of pages and fake profiles with meaningless content. We have used a new tool called Thunderclap which will help spread this meaningful cause and help spread awareness about platelet donation to more than 500 people at once who are genuinely interested in this cause”, said Vaibhav Antil, overall coordinator, Mood Indigo. Anyone who wants to support this cause via the tool may log on to https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/5285-lifesavers-club 

Previous Social causes

The previous projects of Mood Indigo like Khoon Chala (the blood donation drive), Sparsh (in which students taught slum kids), Thalessemia testing and awareness, Aaagaaz (which was about lending social causes a voice through street plays) have been hugely successful and this is what encouraged us to launch this mega project.

Visiting cities

The initiative has already been promoted in the cities of Delhi, Pune and Kolkata by conducting street plays in these cities. The team of Mood Indigo went to these cities themselves for the sake of this cause.    

Your support!

This project based on the above mentioned model is being executed actively in Mumbai. Municipal corporations all across India will be encouraged to follow this model which won’t be possible without the help of students in all these cities.

To become a part of this project, log on to www.moodi.org/lifesaversclub or vist the Mood Indigo page on Facebook.