Philanthropists, government organisations and NGOs
have jumped on to encash the reach and popularity of social media to provide
assistance to patients during medical emergencies. They are also using them to
spread awareness of organ and blood donations.
Hitendra Parmer's relative needed AB+ blood during an
emergency.But it wasn't available in blood banks.Despite several attempts when
he couldn't arrange it, Twitter came to his rescue. Within 30 minutes of
tweeted about it, he received a donor.And throughout the day he kept receiving
calls with offer to help.
Meet Ketan Raval from Blood Monk, an online blood
donation community which helps users to find names of blood donors in the city
on time. It has its presence on all social networking platforms like Whatsapp,
Twitter and Facebook.
“Social media has a wide reach that can be used for
various purposes.So, we thought of employing it for the benefit of patients. It
helps to connect with voluntary blood donors where they can register and can be
searched if someone needs blood,“ said Blood Monk CEO Ketan Raval.
The online portal connects with patients according to
their blood group and location with the help of social media. It also maintains
a database of all patients and donors. “We follow all social media platforms
round the clock,“ he added.
Like Blood Monk, several NGOs are working on various
social sites not only to address medical emergencies but also to spread
awareness.
“With the growing penetration of internet in every
segment of our society, more organisations are exploring all social networking
sites,“ said Raval.
MAKING USE OF SELFIE
Recently, Shatayu, a city-based NGO working for organ
donation, started a campaign `Proud Organ donor selfie' in which registered
donors upload their selfie with the donor's card and make it their Facebook and
Whatsapp profile picture.
According to a Shatayu member, enquiry about organ
donation has increased after the launch of the campaign. Sandip Lagad, a
registered ca daveric donor, participated in the campaign. “In comparison with
Chennai and Mumbai, our state is far behind in organ donation. Hence, these
initiatives on social media platforms where millions of people are connected
can stimulate more response,“ he told Mirror.
GOVT ORGANISATION ACTIVE
Moreover, to provide an immediate platform to
patients during emergency, government-run humanitarian organisations are
venturing into social media.
“We post it on social media whenever there is an
immediate need for blood. We have included Whatsapp in the list. But comparatively,
the response on Whatsapp is less than other on media,“ said Dr Ripal Shah,
medical director of Indian Red Cross Society, Ahmedabad.
Most importantly, as experts said, they receive
quicker response when they post anything on social media.“When we post anything
on social media, a wide range of population sees it. So, the response time is
also faster,“ added Raval.
The response time on Twitter is the lowest. When
posts with relevant hash tags are posted, they immediately get retweeted. As a
result, even strangers get to know about it and donate blood.
However, sometimes due to false broadcast of
information, many people avoid the posts on these platforms. This phenomenon is
most common among Whatsapp users.“People to fulfil their personal interest
spread false messages. And users to avoid falling prey to such notifications,
avoid those,“ said Dr Shah.
No comments :
Post a Comment