New guidelines for Blood Centres / Banks on bulk transfers: Maharashtra

"The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) and SBTC do know about it and can thereby immediately take a decision over the applications for bulk transfer."

The Health Master

February 16, 2023

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Last Updated on January 14, 2024 by The Health Master

Kolhapur, Maharashtra: The additional guidelines framed recently by the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) have made them mandatory for the blood centres / banks.

Highlights of the guidelines are as under:

Blood centres / banks to get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the dean of a government hospital or the district civil surgeon before bulk transfer of blood — within or outside the state.
The SBTC has also suggested that blood centres / banks should store the stock based on the average consumption over the past three months.
For bulk transfer, top priority must be given to government hospitals, government blood centres / banks and then to other private hospitals.

Also, for bulk transfer, the private blood centres / banks have been asked not to charge any money.
The private blood centres / banks should also intimate the SBTC about the price at which the blood is being supplied to the receiver blood centres / bank.
And the blood centre / bank receiving the blood is expected to carry out the required quality testings.

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Several in-charges of blood centres / banks told that the requirement to get an NOC from the dean or the civil surgeon is affecting the transfer process. A blood centre / bank from Kolhapur recently had to discard over 200 bags of blood because the NOC was not issued and the stock got expired.

Prakash Ghunghurkar, president of Kolhapur District Blood Centres / Banks Association, said, “The dean or civil surgeon do not have the knowledge of stocks available with the private bloood centres / banks.”

“The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) and SBTC do know about it and can thereby immediately take a decision over the applications for bulk transfer.”

“The condition of NOC has stopped the transfer of the blood to other private blood centres / banks.”

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Therefore, the blood centre / bank associations from Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts have written to the SBTC to ensure the guidelines issued by the National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC) are implemented in the state, rather than restricting the blood centres / banks from transferring stock to the needy blood centres / banks or hospitals by imposing additional guidelines.

Many private banks in these districts have highlighted another concern: rampant blood collection by banks based in Karnataka along the Maharashtra-Karnataka border.

It has also been alleged that the donors are offered money for donating blood. A senior member of SBTC said they are yet to receive the concerns raised by the private blood bank operators.

“Additional guidelines are framed to avoid excess collection and thereby wastage and secondly to avoid shortage of blood in the state,” the member said.

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