Facebook has not only become an integral part of our life to stay connected with friends and family, but also has been used to find help and support in times of emergencies and dire medical conditions.

Now, Facebook will introduce a new feature on October 1 to its Indian users which will help connects patients, donors and hospitals to find blood donors easily thereby saving time and making the process hassle free.

As a part of this, Facebook will begin showing a prompt on its news feed for users to identify themselves as blood donors. Even though this information will be private, people can make it known to public in their Facebook profiles.

Facebook which has planned to actualise the tool only on android and mobile web platforms initially, will later add on features to make it much more productive. When hospitals or individuals need blood, Facebook will notify the nearby registered blood donors with an option to respond by Whatsapp, Messenger or a normal phone call.

There are around 201 million Facebook users in India and this feature will no doubt encourage people to donate blood and make it easier for those in need to avail blood as well.

 “Our teams have identified a real need in India. People are using Facebook literally thousands of time to look for blood donors. We hope this new feature helps people come together in ways that weren’t possible before,” said Facebook’s health product manager Hema Budaraju.