One year on: Transfusion Authority yet to start work

Monitoring, regulation, information sharing to begin in a month, says chairman.

LAHORE:

The Blood Transfusion Authority (BTA) that was establishment in 2010 and has still not started working independently is expected to start functioning following establishment of a separate office in a month.

The first meeting of the BTA in June 2010 was presided over by its chairman Dr Saeed Elahi. The BTA was allotted an office in the Blood Transfusion Department of the Punjab Institute of Mental Health (mental hospital). However, it was told by the Punjab government to begin its functions in a separate building after preliminary paper work.

The BTA was established to eradicate unscreened blood transfusion and regularise private blood banks. The authority was also made responsible for setting standard operating procedures (SOPs) for blood banks and monitor substandard screening and illegal centres.

A BTA official told The Express Tribune that a separate building could not be established due to the lack of funds.

Dr Elahi said that the BTA would start inspecting and regulating blood banks in about a month.

“We have obtained private funding from Germany for this purpose. We are currently working from the blood transfusion department. But we will soon have our own building,” he said.

Dr Elahi said that the authority had obtained and compiled data of blood banks in Punjab. He said that the authority will regulate the 1,400 blood banks in the province. “We cannot stop them, but we can certainly regulate them and require that they follow the SOPs.”

He said that a software the Authority had developed and was installing will connect all blood banks across the province through internet. Patients will be able to look for the required blood through this system, he added.

Cardiologist Dr Aqeel said that often people, in cases of emergency, ignored the importance of blood screening. “Drug addicts sell their blood to private blood banks, which sell it without screening. This needs to be stopped,” he said. Blood screening is essential and does not require a large investment.

Dr Samia Amjad, an opposition member in Punjab Assembly’s Standing Committee on Health, told The Tribune that nothing relating the BTA had been discussed in any of its meetings so far.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2011.