Creating blood relations, literally, through their ventures
By Raina Assainar
An initiative by a couple to earn good karma has been saving lives of many since the last 13 years. Their way of doing this was by launching a website to help the needy locate blood donors easily. Khushroo Poacha and his wife Fermin Poacha, the founders of Indianblooddonors.com and Plateletdonors.org , have helped many needy people get blood on time. While Khushroo is an employee with Indian Railways, his wife Fermin works with J.N. Tata Parsi Girls High School. Based in Nagpur, the couple started these two websites Indianblooddonors in 1999 and Plateletdonors in year 2012 respectively.
A series of incidents in the life of Poachas led to the idea of the website, targeted to help the needy with precious blood that could save lives. In the month of September 1994 Khushroo’s grandmother had a fall and went into coma. She was admitted into Indira Gandhi Medical College, Nagpur. One day at about 3.30 a.m. early morning, there was a huge commotion in the female ward. Relatives of a patient were bashing up the resident doctor in the ward. On enquiring one of the relatives told Khushroo ‘he has killed my wife’. He then enquired with the doctor what had happened. The doctor told him he had asked the patients relatives to arrange for two units of blood as the lady’s hemoglobin count was very low. “But they could not arrange for donor and hence the transfusion could not be done and the patient passed away due to a cardiac arrest. This incident left a huge impact on me,” says Khushroo.
In yet another incident that happened in 1999, while Khushroo was trying to help a person to get blood of group O-ve from blood banks in Nagpur, he learnt that none of the banks had the said blood group with them. The patient who needed the blood passed away after two days of desperately waiting to get donors to save his life. “This incident got me thinking as to what must be happening to patients who go from one city to another for treatment, where they have no one to help them. What must be happening to patients who suffer from cancer and need a lot of blood transfusion? What must be happening to children who suffer from sickle cell and thalassemia and who need frequent blood transfusions every month?,” recollects Khushroo.
He discussed the problem with his wife and decided they had to do something about it. They wanted to find a solution to solve the problem. But they were unsure of how it could be done. That period was also when dotcoms were coming up everywhere. “Everybody and anybody were launching website almost daily. I was just beginning to use the internet to send mails to my cousin in Canada. In those days we had to pay Rs 100 per hour for internet access from a cyber café,” recalls Khushroo. One day while checking mails, Khushroo realized that he could make a similar platform and would use the power of internet to bring the patient and the donor together. As he encountered the ‘Eureka’ moment, Khushroo decided to make a website which would act as a link between the patient and the donors.
The Poachas had to dig into their life savings to start the website and get going. Looking back at their journey Khushroo says “We did not know head or tail about making a website or the work that goes into making one. I did a little bit of research by reading some magazines and then I contacted a friend of my brother, who was working in IT Company. Since the site was for a good cause, he charged us a discounted rate of Rs 15,000. Further, we had to book a domain for which the payment had to be made by credit card. I did not have one so I requested my cousin sister in Canada to book the domain and it was registered on 27th October 1999.” Next they needed a host where their website could be hosted and I was told to host the site at www.interland.com. The only plan they could afford was of 250 MB with SQL server for three months which costed Rs 10,000. And last but not the least, they needed a computer at home from where they could monitor the site and reply to mails. They were searching for a second hand computer and finally got one for Rs 12,500 and in January 2000 the website was ready for launch. Another friend who was in advertising made their logo, made a poster and helped make an advertisement for the launch. Luckily for them, the website is today supported by three companies in India — Net4India sponsors the hosting, Awaaz.de has provided a free IVRS line 07961907766 and Innoz.in supports the SMS helpline.There are five ways by which a patient can get connected to blood donors.
1. Download the Android App Indian Blood Donors from Google Play. Here patients or their relatives can contact donors in their area or their city.
2. Call 07961907766 – IVRS helpline. This is available in English and Hindi and is meant for the common man who does not either have an access to the net or do not know how to use the SMS service.
3. SMS BLOOD to 55444 (available on Aircel, Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Docomo. Idea Subscribers should SMS BLOOD to 55577
4. SMS DONOR (Std Code) (Blood Group) to 9665500000 to search for donors in your city
5. SMS DONOR PIN (Six Digit Postal Pin Code) (Blood Group) to 9665500000 to search for donors in your area.
In a clear proof of the impact that the websites has created thousands of volunteers across the country have downloaded posters of the website and displayed it at the hospitals to spread awareness among the needy. Even though the Poachas do not get any monetary gain from the websites, the satisfaction they gain from having contributed to such a noble cause is priceless. Five years down the line, the Poachas plan to introduce another app for mobile phones which could help connect friends who are blood donors.