International Standard Blood Banks Lying Unused in Sindh

KARACHI- The Sindh Health Department has failed to operationalization four Regional Blood Transfusion Centers (RBTC) despite lapse of one and half year, it was learned via sources recently.

The four regional blood banks had been constructed in Karachi, Jamshoro, Nawabshah and Sukkur with the financial assistance of German Development Bank, which were still non-functional despite the passage of one and half year. The project was completed with a cost of over 100 million Euros in 2016 and handed over to Sindh health department, but its high-ups have failed to decide the fate of these blood banks so far.

An official at Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA) has informed that four state-of-the-art Regional Blood Transfusion Centers had been completed in Sindh province with Germany assistance in Sindh province. The Centres are equipped with blood processing, screening, testing, component preparation and storage facilities.

He said safe and screened blood would be ensured to thousands of patients every day through centralized blood banking system across the Sindh province once made functional.

They informed that a regional blood transfusion center would be linked with six hospital-based blood banks (HBBBs).  “There was storage capacity of 50,000 blood bags in each regional blood bank and around 200,000 blood bags can be stored once a time in blood banks once they are made operational” they added.

The high ups of health department Sindh has failed to decide fate regional blood transfusion centres despite the lapse of over one year.  The plan to make operational blood banks under public-private partnership is still waiting for approval from competent authority.

Secretary, Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority (SBTA), Dr Zahid Hasan Ansari, was not available for comments.