” the Health Minister said.While hospitals still ask for family replacements

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Blood Guidelines launched – Dr. Ramsammy By Fareeza HaniffAt a time when the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) is experiencing a prolonged shortage of blood, Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy has said that there are too many instances where blood is being wasted in this country.During a seminar yesterday at the Regency Suites dealing with the continued medical education on the Clinical Use of Blood, Minister Ramsammy revealed that on many occasions, blood is being requested and not being used, therefore it has to be discarded.Minister Ramsammy during his address at the seminarIn an effort to deal with this issue, he explained that the Ministry of Health has increased vigilance at monitoring the blood stock within Health Institutions so as to avoid such wastage.“At a time when we still need more blood, it is not right for us to discard blood, because blood that came for use is just trapped in an institution and nobody is paying attention,” Minister Ramsammy said.Last November, this newspaper had reported on the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which stated in its 2008 Country Operation Plan that there may still be problems with the management of blood in Guyana. This included the dumping of blood that has been spoilt due to lack of inadequate or inappropriate storage facilities.At that time Minister Ramsammy had described the report as “absolute nonsense”, but had admitted that the blood bank discards blood.Meanwhile, at the seminar the Minister noted that for the first time in Guyana guidelines have been introduced to standardize the use of blood and its products in the country.“It is coming at a time when the National Blood Transfusion Service is reaching the demand of providing safe blood to the public,” he said.Minister Ramsammy explained that when he first became Guyana’s Health Minister, only 2,500 units of blood were collected and used for the entire year.However, in 2008 the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) collected and utilized approximately 7,500 units of blood at the various Health Institutions, both private and public.In 2000 to 2001, approximately seven to 10 percent of the blood used came from voluntary donors, while today, about 70 percent of blood comes from voluntary donors.A section of the gathering during the seminar. “We are rapidly approaching the time where we are abandoning the system of family replacement. There was a time in our country where we had to demand of families that they had to find people to donate blood,” the Health Minister said.While hospitals still ask for family replacements, it is no longer a requirement, as according to Minister Ramsammy, all hospitals are under instruction that whether those persons replace the blood or not, blood must become available through the NBTS.“And so we have made significant improvement although we have not yet reached the desired goal of 100 percent voluntary donation. But meeting the demands, 100 percent all the time, every time somebody needs blood, all the blood products must be made available.”He explained that in the absence of quality guidelines, the doctors have to practice quality medicine, while some doctors have not practiced medicine in accordance with good quality.In this aspect, Minister Ramsammy said that approximately twelve months ago, there were people who collected blood and transfused it directly to the person in need of it, without conducting any tests on the blood.This, he said, needs to be stopped and called for the cooperation of the public in this regard.It was also noted that at the beginning of January 2008, the buffer stock at the NBTS was between 100 to 130 units of blood, but due to the expanded services at the hospitals, the buffer stock needs to be increased to between 140 to 170 units of blood per day to meet countrywide demands.According to Minister Ramsammy, every private hospital has increased their amount of surgeries along with the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).Within the last six years, the GPHC has gone from conducting over 3,000 surgeries per year before 2002 to now over 10,000 surgeries per year. That expansion of services obviously requires more blood to be made available, Minister Ramsammy noted.All hospitals now have to conduct blood transfusions as is stipulated in the guidelines so as to ensure safe blood is given to those in need.