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DNA Exclusive: Meet the Samaritans connecting plasma donors and patients in Delhi-NCR amid COVID crisis

In this hour of a crisis in the country where citizens are gasping for breath and relatives of patients are running pillar to post seeking help for oxygen cylinders, ICU beds, beds with ventilators and donors for plasma, especially in Delhi-NCR, two individuals Adnan Shah and Sanjay Raina have turned messiahs for those in need. 

Adnan, a Journalism Student and a Political Analyst and Sanjay, a celebrity chef, both originally from Jammu and Kashmir and currently based out of Delhi, have taken it upon themselves to help those looking for plasma donors in Delhi-NCR by way of a Twitter handle @PlasmaNCR. And we sure can say the duo are doing a commendable job of saving lives and reaching out to those who are unable to get any verified donor leads.  

And while we all know by now that there’s a deluge of SOS messages on social media and some good samaritans from different walks of life have been attending to these calls of help, Adnan and Sanjay are two among the many who have been providing assistance to those pleading for help. 

So far, the duo claims to be closing 150 plasma requirement SOS calls a day while they are receiving 250-300 requests per day on average.  Amid the second wave claiming the lives of thousands, we reached out to Adnan to know how did Sanjay and he come up with @PlasmasNCR, how were they keeping up with so many requests, about their team and more, in an exclusive chat. 

When asked how did they come up with the @PlasmaNCR initiative, Adnan said, “It was quite a spontaneous decision. When all hell broke loose, we saw some Plasma requests on Twitter and also noticed that most of the attention of netizens was going towards SOS calls for hospitals, beds, ICUs, ambulances, the requirement for Remdesivir, oxygen and cylinders, while plasma requests weren’t getting a response. We picked them up, closed them and decided that a concentrated and concerted effort on one particular support would be far more beneficial for people than trying to help everywhere. And @PlasmaNCR was born. We immediately made a Twitter handle, discussed how to go about it and put our thoughts together and decided a way forward. And thankfully, it worked.”

Adnan revealed that while he knew Sanjay for the last two years (they had met at the latter’s restaurant in Delhi), the decision to come together for this cause happened spontaneously when they both were trying to arrange a bed for one of their Kashmiri friends. “We had decided to work as a team initially to assist fellow Kashmiris in NCR, but the moment we saw the scale of the disaster, we shifted our focus and decided to help those who need plasma in Delhi NCR. We made up our mind that we would go all out to help anyone and everyone in NCR, as much as we could,” Adnan told DNA. 

Talking about the strength of his team, Adnan disclosed that it was just the two of them who were attending to all the SOS messages on Twitter, reaching out to the relatives, coordinating with plasma donors and closing the cases. “It may be hard to believe, but it’s just the two of us. Like they say -Ek aur ek Gyaara!! We decided to take more load than spend time looking for others to help us,” Adnan said. 

Speaking about the SOP for @PlasmaNCR, Adnan said, “So that we don’t miss a request, we created a concise form in a tweet and asked for DMs only. This way no one’s request was getting lost in the ocean off SOS tweets. In order to save time, acceptance of request is responded to only with a thumbs up and we do not respond to any follow-ups. A request taken means we are ON IT. Also, we take all requests.” 

How do they match a request with a donor and what happens if the donor isn’t matched, Adnan averred, “We are constantly creating and updating our donor pool of any group and make it available against the request for the same group. It may not be necessarily first come first serve, we also see the condition of a patient at times and give priority if possible. The request is open till it is closed. We’ve sent donor after donor in cases it did not match, but we never gave up until the case was closed.”

Adnan revealed that in this situation of crisis it takes them a few hours to match a plasma requirement request. 

What happens when they are tagged in SOS requests for plasma that does not necessarily are from Delhi NCR? “The only basis of us taking requests is that they should be from any place in Delhi NCR. However, requests from other parts of the country are amplified for help by our handles on Twitter.”

On when all of this ends, how would they like to continue being part of a larger social cause, Adnan told DNA, “We would like to take @PlasmaNCR further. We want to continue our endeavour of not letting people having to run around for Plasma. We would like to be there to assist them at all times in a far more organised setup.”

Source: dnaindia.com