When A Chennai Based Girl Used Tinder To Initiate A Blood Donation Drive !!

Written by Dhiwaharan Published on May 13, 2021 | 05:21 AM IST | 391

Comments: 0

Many of us would have used the dating app Tinder to get a perfect match for us in the past. The online dating application allows users to swipe to like or dislike other profiles based on their photos, a mini bio, and common interests. Once two users have “matched”, they can exchange messages in order to meet in person and to take their relationship forward. Due to the emergence of social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp, Tinder lost its users drastically and the surge in fake profiles that are being created in the app made real users to lose interest as well. Now, the app made its come back in style but this time in a different dimension. It is a Chennai based medical student Riya Gupta who helped the app to grab headlines again through her efforts and interest in helping people to find blood amidst the COVID 19 pandemic.

[wp_ad_camp_1]

Through Tinder, Riya managed to find a blood donor for a 2 month old baby named Bhavan who was going to have emergency heart surgery for a condition named “Total Anamolous Pulmonary Venous connection”. The COVID 19 pandemic and the devastation it caused in the medical infrastructure of the state, made it difficult for the parents to find a blood donor for their child.

Without having much options, the parents made phone calls to friends, relatives and put out a request on social media to get a blood donor at 2 AM in the morning. Riya, as soon as receiving the request from Bhavan’s parents, started looking for a blood donor in evrety possible way, along with her friends. After putting a request on her Tinder, a donor volunteered himself at 3 AM and the surgery for Bhavan successfully got completed at 8 A.M, Riya said to The Hindu.

[wp_ad_camp_1]

The 20 year old medical student says that she, along with her friends, realized that there is a huge demand for blood amidst this COVID 19 pandemic. They who halted their Tinder profiles since lockdown, started reactivating it to find blood donors. She who is aware of a story about a person getting plasma donor through Tinder, got over 100 people to sign up as donors only through the information she provided on the Tinder accounts of herself and her friends over the last week.

The group of girls are connected to the blood banks of Egmore Children’s hospital, Egmore Maternity Hospital, Adyar Cancer institute etc through applications such as Whatsapp and Slack. Riya says that she would reach out to the Tinder using blood donors whenever she gets a requirement from the hospitals and she assures that the donors will be directly connected to the patients or hospital.

Riya also runs an Instagram page named “Blood Donors Connect” for the same cause. Riya, along with her friends, is successfully doing 10 cases per day. After getting the initial request, Riya manages to get a donor within 30-60 minutes through her connections in social media. Riya’s service expands as NGOs such as Red cross India, Chennai Tricolor approached her to get help for the patients of Government hospitals.

[wp_ad_camp_1]

This initiative of getting blood donors from a dating app is garnering nationwide attention with national celebrity Suresh Raina giving a shout out to Riya and co. Riya expressed her wish of expanding her service across Tamil nadu and it is our duty to support her in every possible way. Let’s start it by following her Instagram page “Blood donor connect”