Daily Times

LAHORE: The Institute for Blood Transfusion Services (IBTS), one of the premier institutes providing blood-related services to patients in the province, has purchased malfunctioning blood storage cabinets worth millions of rupees, raising a serious question mark on the competence of its administration.

As many as 13 sophisticated equipments were either non-functional or permanently locked, which speaks volumes about the administration’s negligence during the procurement process.

IBTS Punjab has been working to ensure and maintain quality in the blood banks, besides standardising equipment, reagents, techniques and personnel at all blood banks. These free of cost services were being provided to all the admitted patients in public sector hospitals across the province.

A well-placed source in IBTS Punjab, on the condition of anonymity, told Daily Times that 13 blood storage cabinets, model Emoteca 700ECT-F touch from Italy, were procured and delivered by Global Marketing Services, Rawalpindi, against millions of rupees. These cabinets can handle temperatures of around 4 Celsius. It can work with 336 blood bags of 450ML each and uses pre-coated steel material to make it stronger.

He said IBTS Punjab delivered these cabinets to different public hospitals, but only a few days after installation, complaints were being received regarding the dysfunctional cabinets. The IBTS head office has been receiving multiple complaints regarding malfunctioning of supplied blood storage cabinets, he said, adding that incharge of blood banks of different public hospitals were also forwarding complaints, including the malfunctioning of electronic system due to which some cabinets were permanently locked.

The source further revealed that the wheels of these cabinets have not been provided up until now despite the fact that it was agreed in the specifications provided by the company during the bidding process. Blood bank located at Mayo Hospital reported that a blood cabinet provided to them performed poorly, much to agony of the patients.

The annual requirement of blood is approximately 1.5 million bags with 40 percent demand being met by the public sector. About 80% of private sector blood transfusions take place in major cities, mainly Karachi and Lahore. Despite efforts to control the practice, around 10-20 percent blood is still donated by professional donors. The concept of Voluntary Non-remunerated Donors (VND) is almost non-existent in Pakistan due to the absence of blood donor recruitment strategy.

The cultural and socio-economic factors are also associated with the reluctance to donate blood at all, especially without reward. Over 90 percent of the total blood intake is from relatives of the patient.

There is no system in place for proper recruitment, record keeping and retention of the blood donors except for few centres. Proper blood storage and transportation facilities are also not available in most of the public and private sector blood banks, which leads to wastage of significant proportion of the collected blood.

A letter has been written by Dr Zafar Iqbal director IBTS Punjab to Global marketing services Rawalpindi, complaining about the inefficiency of these blood devices and requested to rectify the problem immediately so that the function of blood units may not be disturbed.