KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porterkevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Al­though donors on­ly pro­vid­ed 1,915 units of vol­un­tary non-re­mu­ner­at­ed blood be­tween 2022 and 2023, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh says the Gov­ern­ment is go­ing ahead with plans to scrap the “chit for blood” sys­tem.

In writ­ten re­spons­es to ques­tions from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal on Tues­day, Deyals­ingh said the tra­di­tion­al blood bank­ing sys­tem is dis­ad­van­ta­geous to pa­tients with­out ac­cess to donors, es­pe­cial­ly those re­quir­ing reg­u­lar trans­fu­sions, or in need of blood in emer­gen­cies. The cur­rent sys­tem gives pref­er­en­tial ac­cess to rel­a­tives of pa­tients who do­nate blood when need­ed and those with the right to re­claim their do­na­tions for fu­ture use.

Deyals­ingh said eq­ui­table blood col­lec­tion and bank­ing sys­tems can be achieved through vol­un­tary, non-re­mu­ner­at­ed do­na­tions that col­lect enough blood that is freely avail­able for clin­i­cal needs.

“There­fore, the re­moval of the chit for blood sys­tem is a strate­gic ob­jec­tive of the Min­istry of Health and this Gov­ern­ment, since it views that sys­tem to be very daunt­ing and un­fair with the po­ten­tial to com­pro­mise the safe­ty of donors and per­sons await­ing blood trans­fu­sion,” he said.

The min­is­ter re­it­er­at­ed that the min­istry’s ob­jec­tive is to col­lect at least 40,000 units of blood an­nu­al­ly with­in the next three years us­ing the non-re­mu­ner­at­ed blood do­na­tion mod­el. There are sev­en blood do­na­tion cen­tres and two mo­bile units across T&T. Cen­tres col­lect­ed 109,330 units of blood be­tween 2018 and 2023 at an av­er­age of 21,866 per year.

In terms of vol­un­tary non-re­mu­ner­at­ed blood do­na­tions, cen­tres in Point Fortin, Port-of-Spain, San­gre Grande and San Fer­nan­do be­gan of­fer­ing the ser­vice in 2022, with donors sup­ply­ing 154 units.

When the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) and North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty’s (NCRHA) Mo­bile Do­na­tion Unit (MDU) were added to the ser­vice in 2023, col­lec­tion in­creased to 1,770 units.

The MoH launched its non-re­mu­ner­at­ed vol­un­tary blood do­na­tion cam­paign in June 2022 and 2,546 peo­ple had do­nat­ed as of May 15.

Cen­tres col­lect­ed 19,202 units in 2018, 18,660 in 2019, 13,875 in 2020, 18,116 in 2021, 17,300 in 2022 and 17, 570 in 2023. There was a steady drop in cen­tres re­ject­ing blood over the pe­ri­od, with 789 units de­clined af­ter screen­ing in 2018, 735 in 2019, 637 in 2020, 472 in 2021, 417 in 2022, and 364 in 2023. Cen­tres dis­card­ed 2635 units over the pe­ri­od, an av­er­age of 527 units per year.

Based on the da­ta, 849 units ex­pired in 2018, 1,056 in 2019, 810 in 2020, 842 in 2021, 743 in 2022 and 1,000 in 2023. The di­rect av­er­age cost of blood col­lec­tion ranged from $300-$600 per unit, re­sult­ing in a $47 mil­lion ex­pen­di­ture.

Deyals­ingh said the MoH has de­vel­oped and is im­ple­ment­ing a tran­si­tion plan to re­place the “chit for blood” sys­tem. This will negate the need for peo­ple to do­nate on be­half of spe­cif­ic pa­tients and make the sys­tem 100 per cent vol­un­tary, non-re­mu­ner­at­ed, sus­tain­able and eq­ui­table.

So far, cen­tres in Port-of-Spain, Mount Hope, San Fer­nan­do and San­gre Grande have been re­fur­bished and re­mod­elled and mo­bile units are be­ing used in Point Fortin and Ari­ma.

Deyals­ingh said the MoH up­dat­ed stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures, re­trained per­son­nel on phle­boto­my and oth­er as­pects of blood col­lec­tion and im­ple­ment­ed a cus­tomer care qual­i­ty ser­vice im­prove­ment mech­a­nism, a com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan and a cam­paign.

It al­so de­vel­oped a blood donor reg­istry and ap­point­ment book­ing sys­tem. He said the MoH al­so con­tin­ued its part­ner­ship with the pub­lic and cor­po­rate sec­tors, rais­ing non-re­mu­ner­at­ed vol­un­tary blood do­na­tions from 0.5 per cent in 2022 to 9.5 per cent by April.