Bauchi to establish blood banks in hospitals

Typical hospital ward in Nigeria. Twitter photo.

By Huseyn Abubakar Mbar

The Bauchi State Government has concluded plans to establish functional Blood Banks in all the 27 General Hospitals.

Dr Abdul’Aziz Manga, the Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Hospitals Management Boards, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi on Saturday that the plan was to reduce the death of mothers and newborns resulting from lack of blood in hospitals.

“You know that the importance of blood banks, especially in saving lives of pregnant women and newborns cannot be over emphasised.

“We have strategised to establish functional blood banks in all the General Hospitals in Bauchi State, including some of the health facilities at the primary health care level.

“I can assure you that in the next two or three months, the 27 General Hospitals in the state will have functional and standardised blood banks.’’

He said only seven hospitals currently have standard blood banks.

“Another way of providing this is to look into the service charge account domicile in each of the hospitals that are running the Drugs Revolving Scheme.

“When such drugs are sold, there is certain percentage that goes to the hospitals and we are going to use part of the resources to set up functional blood banks in all the hospitals.

“We have submitted a memo to the governor on the possibility of establishing solar propel inverters in each of the hospitals to have a constant electricity supply,” he said.

Manga denied insinuations in some circles that blood donated by individuals was being used for cult activities.

He said that blood donated by the people was strictly used in saving the lives of patients and nothing more.
The chairman said that the board would evolve a way whereby relations of beneficiaries of donated blood would be encouraged to ensure the hospitals maintained steady supplies. (NAN)