The blood barrier
Volunteers get caste, religion and gender-based
blood donation requests
Hospital staffers and organisers of blood donation drives have been facing a very bizarre situation with people in need of blood requesting blood from
donors with specific caste, religion or gender.
Arun Menon, a coordinator for The
Save Life initiative, an NGO in
East Bengaluru, said that they have been receiving such bizarre requests through messages on WhatsApp. “People make gender-specific requests for blood donation and say that they need only male donors which I refuse immediately as how would the gender of the donor matter. We have female donors too coming forward to donate and people sending out such messages are not right and we don’t entertain any kind of discrimination. A few months ago, we received a request from a family who wanted blood specific to a caste and requested donors from their religion or caste. Not just us, even the doctors have been receiving such requests and we are cutting them off immediately,” he said.