The plight of a boy who suffered severe loss of blood in a road accident in Malpe in 1990 moved a first-year pre-university student so much that he took up the cause of propagating the importance of blood donation.
That is not all, Diwakar Kharvi, who is now 39, donated his blood for the 58th time at a blood donation camp organised by him with the help of local organisations at Gangolli village in Udupi district on Tuesday.
His passion for propagating the importance of blood donation has seen the number of blood donors at Gangolli village increase to 600. The village has a population of 12,090 (2001 Census).
Recalling the incident which turned him into a champion for the cause of blood donation, he said that he was on his way to college from home on November 17, 1990, when a car hit a boy of class six at Malpe in Udupi. The boy, who was bleeding, was rushed to a private hospital. A surgery was to be performed on him and blood was needed.“When I went to the hospital's blood bank, they said that they would give blood, if somebody donated blood in return. It was then I donated blood for the first time. This incident changed my outlook and I decided to take up the cause of popularising blood donation. Since then I have been donating blood at least twice a year,” he said.
Mr. Kharvi, a resident of Gangolli, works as a field assistant in the Department of Fisheries in Kundapur. He is also a member of the managing committee of the district unit of Indian Red Cross Society. How did he take to organising blood donation camps? “About six years ago, there was a shortage of blood at the Blood Bank of the District Government Hospital in Udupi. It was then that head of the Blood Bank J. Sharatkumar Rao, who is now ICRS Vice-Chairman, called me and asked to hold a blood donation camp. He has been guiding me since then in organising camps,” he said.
Since 2007, Mr. Kharvi with the help of various local organisations has been holding five to seven camps a year at Gangolli and surrounding villages. “About 80 per cent of blood donated is given to the District Government Hospital in Udupi and the rest to a private hospital in Manipal,” he said. Mr. Kharvi has gone a step ahead this time and will be starting a website in 15 days. This website will have names, addresses, blood groups and telephone numbers of blood donors.
Keywords: blood donation
