Blood from Bangalore Helps Save A Life in Instanbul-Turkey

23rd February 2013: Sankalp India Foundation, a Bangalore based voluntary blood donation organisation organises for 3 units of blood of the extremely rare blood of Bombay phenotype for a critical patient receiving treatment at Istanbul University, Turkey.

On 20th February 2013, Sankalp India Foundation received an blood request from the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Istanbul University, Turkey. The hospital identified the patient's blood group as Bombay blood group - an extremely rare blood type and for the past 7 days they had been looking for blood donors across Turkey without any success. They came across www.bombaybloodgroup.org, an initiative of Sankalp India Foundation - which networks Bombay Blood Group donors, needy and associated blood banks in India. Once they approached the organisation to seek help, the first of its kind humanitarian effort to make available the blood units to the patient was initiated.

Though Sankalp India Foundation has regularly been organising blood units for patients across the country, this was an exceptional request since the units had to be transferred over a very long distance - across the borders. Thanks to the vibrant Bombay Blood Group donors community in Bangalore, all in a matter of 48 hours the 3 units of blood were donated and kept ready for the patient at Rashtrotthana Blood Bank, Bangalore. While the family processed the Visa and the paperwork, for the very first time temperature controlled logistics was put to use to enable safe transfer of blood for up-to 48 hours. with all necessary arrangements in place, the patient's son came down to Bangalore to collect the units on 22rd February and by the morning of 23rd, the units were on their way to the patient in Istanbul.

About Sankalp India Foundation
Sankalp India Foundation is a voluntary blood donation organization that is working for the cause of blood since its inception on 23 May, 2003. The organisation promotes voluntary blood donation, networks blood banks and works towards ensuring that nobody suffers due to shortage of blood. Sankalp has and an emergency team which has built expertise in handling extremely critical and rare blood requests.The organisation can be reached at www.sankalpindia.net | sankalp.admin@gmail.com | +91-9880132850 for any emergencies.

About BombayBloodGroup.org
In-spite of the fact that Bombay Blood Group is a rare unit, an www.bombaybloodgroup.org initiate of the active Bombay Blood Group donors and Sankalp India Foundation has made the task of finding the donors easier. This platform networks all known Bombay Blood Group donors and maintains their history of donation, eligibility status and availability information. The platform also has networked with the blood banks to receive alerts at the time of collection of any Bombay Blood Group unit. All Bombay blood group requests are managed centrally. First it is checked if the unit is available in any blood bank across the nation. If there is no unit found, then the most suitable donor is requested to donate blood. Latest developments in transfusion medicine and logistics are put to use to ensure that the need for the units can be minimised and at the same time the unit is made available wherever needed.

Since April 2012 itself, the team has organised for 101 Bombay Blood Group units for 51 patients in various parts of the India - and now including Turkey!