World Blood Donor Day: Why an Indian expat in Dubai donates blood every 57 days
Volunteer never looked back after he first aided his uncle who had blood cancer in 1999
Dubai: Indian expat Shijith Vidhayasagar, who is based in Dubai, donates blood every 57th day.
This is the most he can do under World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, the 44-year-old told Gulf News today, on World Blood Donor Day. The guidelines say once you donate blood, you have to wait at least 56 days to donate again.
Vidhayasagar, fondly called ‘Unni’ among volunteers and officials associated with blood donation in the UAE, has saved many lives with 93 donations in India and the UAE since 1999. In the UAE alone, the father-of-two has donated blood and platelets 54 times since 2003.
It was no surprise Unni was headed for the Blood Donation Centre in Dubai on the day of annual global campaign led by WHO, to arrange a platelets donation camp. An active volunteer of Blood Donors Kerala (BDK)-UAE chapter, Unni says blood donation is the most noble service that most healthy adults can volunteer for.
“The joy and satisfaction of saving lives without being a healthcare professional is what inspires blood donors like me,” said Unni, who hails from the south Indian state of Kerala.
“Every donor is a hero as he or she is helping give a new lease of life to someone.”
Selfless mission
Unni’s selfless mission of saving lives began when he first donated for his own paternal uncle who suffered from blood cancer back home in 1999. Then a 20-year-old, Unni has never looked back and continued the service after reaching Dubai in 2003.
Explaining his donation cycle further, Unni said: “I usually donate platelets after giving whole blood once. After platelets donation, you can donate platelets again after two weeks. So, I give platelets again every 15 days. This routine can change slightly for blood donation after travelling to certain countries known to have diseases like Malaria.”
Battalion of donors
A product trainer with a German company specialised in cleaning machinery for 13 years, Unni said his volunteering work entered a new phase once he joined the BDK-UAE chapter in 2014.
“Three friends - Vigneswaran, Vijay Babu and Raheem Reji - founded the group on Kerala Foundation Day, November 1, in 2014. I joined the group as soon as I got to know about it.”
Though some of the founders have left the UAE for good and hundreds of volunteers have come and gone, the group has been growing stronger over the years.
“We have 20,000 followers on our Facebook community page and around 50 of us are active volunteers coordinating all donation works. It is not just about you donating your blood. You need to devote time, effort and sometimes meet some expenses to arrange transportation of donors in case of emergency,” Unni said.
Unni is among the battalion of active volunteers who are ever-ready to either donate or to arrange donors and blood donation camps.
“We have a very good rapport with the officials of the Blood Donation Centre in Dubai to whom we are very grateful to. They do a great job and call us whenever there is a need. We are also working with a special permission from the Community Development Authority in Dubai.”
Easy donor search
A unique habit of the group’s members is to add the blood type of each member in their phone contact list. “My blood group is O positive. So, everyone saves my name as Unni O+. It is easy for us to search for donors in this way,” he said.
Though O positive is a universal donor, Unni said it is for the same blood group that the highest demand comes for. “The more common your blood group is, the more people are going to need it.”
He said the BDK-UAE group members never accepted remuneration for their noble service even though the government used to offer monetary benefits earlier.
“Every weekend, we hold camps for platelet donation based on the requirement. Just last weekend, we donated 226 units. We attend to two or three emergency cases every week. Our members donate 20 to 30 units of blood weekly,” he said.