Omale Joseph, the Director-General of the Nigeria Blood Services Commission, has asserted that many hospitals in Nigeria are issuing expired blood to the patients.
The DG also added that some other hospitals sell blood donated by individuals for storage in their banks for as much as ₦20,000
Omale stated this while briefing journalists on Thursday, in Abuja, PUNCH reports.
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The alarm followed a bill to establish the National Blood Services Commission sponsored by a member of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, which has been signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to the DG, safe blood only has a lifespan of 35 days and becomes unsafe to use after that.
He noted that the new bill will cause the establishment of blood banks and centres across the 36 states and local governments areas in the country to save lives in the hinterlands.
Mr. Omale said, “A unit of blood it is taken out expires between 30 and 35 days. If you don’t transfuse this blood within that period and it gets to 35 days, it has to be thrown away. But people still keep them in their fridge and transfuse them.
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“These are some of the things we are going to regulate. We are already regulating. We are also working to a point that blood will be everywhere in Nigeria. And one of the things we are doing is to initiate what we call the one million safe blood initiatives.
“Another area the Act would help is the issue of increasing the outlets where people can get blood. For example, you rarely get blood banks outside major hospitals. Most of the states are only making do with only one or two blood banks.
“The establishment of the commission would ensure that not only state governments and their big tertiary hospitals would have blood banks, but every local government should have at least a blood bank, so that people in need would be able to access it easily and cheaply.”
“The president has assented to the bill for the establishment of the Nigerian Blood Service Commission.
“It is a very important milestone achieved in the medical sector of this country. Before the ascent of the president, the industry had been fragmented. It had been to a great extent, unregulated and not too coordinated and because of that, a lot of things are happening.”
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