All surgeries in the obstetrics and gynaecology departments at the San Fernando General Hospital were cancelled yesterday due to a blood shortage. However, Health Minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis said, "There is no blood shortage at the public health institutions." Baptiste-Cornelis, who with Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar opened a new eye theatre and refurbished ENT/Eye Ward at the hospital noted: "There is just not as much as people would like." She called on the public, who were not engaged in risky behaviour, to do their part by becoming donors, noting that the issue was being addressed and a blood donor campaign would begin this month to educate the public. The doctor who informed the T&T Guardian about the cancellation of surgeries said yesterday staff could not take the risk to do surgeries without blood.
Acting medical director Dr Anand Chatoorgoon acknowledged, "we are having problems with the availability of blood and therefore surgeries that require blood may well have to be postponed." He said: "I personally spoke to the Chief Medical Officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch, this morning, (yesterday) and he is well aware of the situation. He said they are dealing with it and hope to have it resolved in a week."
Chatoorgoon said the CMO has also mandated them to put in place a regional blood transfusion committee and look into mounting a voluntary blood donation drive. Chatoorgoon explained that in the past, they engaged in blackmailing patients to have their relatives give blood in order to do their operation.
However, he said that system, although it worked, opened itself up for abuse, hence the reason they had to abolish it. We do not want to engage in blackmail at this time, but we would like to encourage people to continue giving blood, because, in the absence of the availability of blood, many surgeries may not be able to be done. Sources at the Blood Bank revealed that since the January 1, 2011 abolition of a chit system which gave donors ownership of blood donated for friends and relatives, the volume had decreased to single digits. They said they had been going through their list of donors, reminding them to give blood. Yesterday morning, there were two donors at the Blood Bank on the hospital compound.
"In the past people gave blood for friends and relatives. Now that it can go to anybody requiring blood, there are no volunteers."
Baptiste-Cornelis, in fielding questions from the media about the reported shortage, after the opening, said the chit system encouraged fraud among nationals who had to pay for blood, an unwelcome practice by the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards. She explained, people who lived by donating blood and selling it, "want to buck the system. They want it back." She said not that people cannot claim ownership of the blood which goes to a pool, "The amount we used to have when people were paying is not there, but that does not mean there is a shortage either. She referred to the giving of eight pints of blood to Chrystal Boodoo-Ramsoomair, who died on March 4 after giving birth to a baby girl via a Caesarian section at the hospital, to make the point, if there was a shortage they would not have been able to do so.