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Story #40 of 50 days, 50 Stories Campaign
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We as sensitive human beings always want to see everybody happy, healthy, and at peace. While many are contended and leading a healthy life, a large section of society is deprived of it. ‘Being healthy’ is just a distant dream for them. Patients with deadly blood disorders are among them, who are battling against various life-threatening diseases every day. For many patients Blood Stem Cell transplant is the only hope of a cure for these fatal disorders and finding an HLA-matched donor is an essential initial step to find this permanent cure.
DATRI currently has searched for over 12,000+ patients and many more patients in India are waiting for a match. While they wait for their life-saving match, they undergo chemotherapy. So, in many of the cases, by the time the elusive match is found, either the chemotherapy takes the patient or cancer does. The best-case situation is one where, when a patient comes to us looking for a match, we are able to find him/her a match immediately from the already registered donors and can facilitate the donation immediately, thereby significantly increasing the patient’s chances of survival and reducing the subsequent cost of treatment.
But in order to do so, keeping in mind the very low odds of finding a match, there is a need for a much larger registry. At DATRI our dream is to make society free from fatal blood disorders, which is only possible by contributions from generous socially sensitive folks. Our registry currently has about 4, 63,474 registered donors. We have facilitated 863 Blood Stem Cell donations to date. However, the odds of finding a match are 1:10,000 to 1:10,00,000. We are committed to expanding the nationwide registry across all parts of India.
However, each registration costs DATRI Rs.1800 towards HLA typing. On receiving funding support from generous people in the society, DATRI can multiply its efforts, and together we can strive to save more lives. When you donate money to DATRI you are saving lives. Blood cancer is on the rise and there are several families which need financial support for testing their friends and family members in order to find that elusive match to save their loved one’s life.
They rely on the act of kindness by a stranger who will help cover this cost. And this act of kindness does not go in vain. It carries forward as ripples – because the friends and family members whose lab costs have been paid for will get added to the DATRI database and they, in turn, agree to donate their stem cells for a patient in the future, if they are ever a match. Thus not only do you help families which are down on their luck, but you also help create the ripples that spread and help grow the registry that will continue to save many more lives. There are many ways for you to help people receive the life-saving transplant they need.
Give a one-time gift; Give a monthly gift, Donate in honor of someone, etc. Every INR 1800/- raised adds a potential Blood Stem Cell donor to DATRI. To save the life of a patient of blood cancer is in the hands of ordinary people like you. Help save a life. On behalf of the people whose lives DATRI touches, thank you for helping us in making life-saving transplants a reality.
About DATRI:
DATRI is a Not-for-Profit organization founded in 2009 with a mission to save lives of those suffering from life-threatening Fatal blood disorders like Blood Cancer, Thalassemia, Leukemia, Aplastic Anemia, Sickle Cell Anaemia, etc.
DATRI is registered with the Government of India as a Section 8 organization, and all monetary contributions towards DATRI are subject to 80G exemptions
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About the Author:
Sonali A. Bhandarkar is a medical graduate and management professional with Ph.D. in service management. She is working in the social sector since 6 years and passionate to make constructive changes in lives. She is part of DATRI for almost 3 years. Continuous learning and improvements are the things that keep her going. And the real reward for all of us is the happy healthy faces of the patients and Donors.