THE quality of blood which we give to patients has again come under question as a mobile court sealed off an illegal blood centre on Saturday in the city. The New Nation reported that 64 bags of unsafe blood were seized from the centre run by some employees of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) in the city. The news has also questioned the professional creditability of the persons who are running the illegal trade taking advantage of human miseries. There is a growing suspicion that they are supplying such blood to patients at DMCH. It has raised serious concerns and fear in people who are facing the situation that requires them to collect blood for transfusion in their patients who are under going treatment. Blood collection and transfusion are two very critical matters relating to patients’ recovery and on top of it, their safety from contaminated blood. So those who are running the illegal blood centers are essentially involved in a big crime and we hold the view that they should be sternly dealt with. We are still far away from ensuring safe blood transfusion at clinics and hospitals. The government adopted the Safe Blood Transfusion Act-2004 and later revised it in June 2008. It has again formulated the National Blood Policy and put it into effect in 2013. But these laws and policies are not enough so far as they are failing to ensure better processing of blood collection and transfusion by the application of all scientific methods. Loopholes in the system are allowing dishonest people to trade in the most sensitive inputs for the human body. We know that the government has established more than 100 safe blood transfusion centers across the country on the sideline of medical colleges and district hospitals. But a huge number of private blood banks have also emerged across the country with tacit support of professional physicians at some levels. But these centers collect blood from many people including addicts and HIV infected persons which appear to be at huge risk to the life of a person who takes transfusions of such blood. Contaminated blood may wreak havoc to the entire health sector at a time when they take blood collection and sell it for transfusion without screening its quality. Even most public hospitals and healthcare facilities ignore blood screening, separation and fractionation and it remains highly unsafe to human health. We therefore ask the government to properly monitor the blood collection, preservation, sale and transfusion under a highly qualified regulatory system in the health sector. We also hold the view that the government should set up the proposed National Blood Center immediately in the light of the National Blood Policy guidelines to do the job. Some professional donors are also destroying the reliability of the available blood at various blood centers. The system should therefore not only reduce dependence on them but they must also be banned. The authorities should also look into the involvement of professional physicians with illegal blood centers. They must be investigated, because they are helping those centers to run and are also facilitating the sale of the blood for patients from those centers. They are a partners in the crime and need to be punished.
