GIS IS IN MY BLOOD


GIS IS IN MY BLOOD!
S.Raghavendran1

1 GIS Analyst
Email: srg_gis@yahoo.com


Give Me Blood! I Promise You Freedom!! This was the call by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at a rally of Indians in Burma, July 4, 1944 during India’s struggle for independence. Now we stand in an IT dominant era with tech savvy society, where most things happen at the click of a mouse. Phone calls to friends and relatives with a great deal of anxiety are quite common during medical emergencies arising out of accidents or illness or other such medical conditions. Any help from unknown quarters comes as a big relief. But one is often caught scrambling during such critical times for much-needed information, the information regarding blood donors. Those looking out for blood donors during such medical emergencies would understand the nightmare of not getting the required information at the appropriate time. Everyday thousands of lives are lost for want of blood at the appropriate time. When lives are at stake, every second counts and words cannot describe the plight of the near and dear ones, running from pillar to post in locating the blood donors. Geography or GIS for that matter has never been so closer offering a helping hand in our day-today life. Though GIS is being applied for logistics in transporting the accident victims to the appropriate hospital from the accident spot, evidences are not available regarding applying GIS for blood donors and receivers. In the recent past, help is available on the net: http://www.indianblooddonors.com a Nagpur-based website founded by Khusroo Poacha, that has information on blood donors across the country.

This paper is a proof-of-concept for the City of Chennai, to show how GIS can be used to quickly locate the blood donors of the required blood group nearer to a given hospital location on a GIS based map of Chennai City. The proof-of-concept is a GIS map based interface, a linkage of database of the blood donors and the base map of Chennai City, thereby creating a searchable interface for those in search of blood donors. It also showcases how clustering techniques can be used along with GIS to reduce the precious time lost in prioritizing which blood donors to contact. Right information, at the Right time, in the Right form – GIS could be the possible way!
The objective here is:

To create awareness on the need to integrate GIS into the daily lives of the hoi polloi at various levels.


To show how GIS can effectively be used in a myriad of ways to locate the blood donors quickly at the critical hour, thereby saving valuable human lives.

Of what use could be any technology if it cannot reach and benefit the common public suffering in the veritable concrete jungles, the so-called cities and the remote villages of India? It is a pity that technologies such as GIS and many such applications do not see the light of the day!

A final thought: With such a GIS application in place, I am sure to say “GIS is in my blood…Give me GIS and I promise you blood !”

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