Blood bank gets $$$Multi-million blood collection machine

Mar 28, 2018 News

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At a cost of US$94,000 [approximately G$18.8M], a new Apheresis Machine has been acquired for the National Blood Transfusion Service [NBTS] – the country’s main blood transfusion centre situated at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC].
The machine was commissioned at a simple ceremony yesterday during which health officials sought to highlight how instrumental it will be in improving the efficiency of the blood transfusion process.
The Trima Accel® Automated Blood Collection System was procured in Puerto Rico. It comes complete with provision for training of staffers of the NBTS. An ongoing three-day training programme is expected to cater for 12 staffers.
Officials of Trima who are facilitating the training, were present yesterday to answer questions about the machine which they said should have a five-year life span. However, the machine will require maintenance every six months in order to remain efficient.
On hand to speak glowingly of the recent procurement through her Ministry, Senior Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence, said, “The most important thing you (heard yesterday) is that the Government of Guyana through the Ministry of Public Health does not take lightly to the improvement of services for our people.”
She continued, “The expenditure used by the Ministry of Public Health has been done in a manner that will not only save lives and bring about efficiency within the system, particularly the Blood Bank, but it will help us to have a safer quality, a larger amount and it will increase the speed with which we can attend to our people’s needs.”

With the new machine, Minister Lawrence said that doctors, nurses and other attendants will be able to have at their finger-tips the requisite items needed from the Blood Bank to be able to attend to their patients in a timely manner.
“I think that is what Guyanese people want. They want to be able to receive the best services but they want to be able to receive it in a timely manner. I believe that our medical personnel throughout our 10 administrative regions will be very happy at us having acquired this machine because it is not just for the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation,” Minister Lawrence noted.
She explained that the machine will allow NBTS Director, Dr. Pedro Lewis, and his staff to be able to fulfill requests made by health officers throughout the other nine administrative regions too.
But according to the Public Health Minister, given the sizeable sum used to procure the machine, there is likely to be a decrease in other spending.
Also present at yesterday’s ceremony was Minister within the Public Health Ministry, Dr. Karen Cummings, who underscored that “without a doubt this newly acquired Apheresis Machine will definitely result in the efficient provision of products that are needed by patients.”
Among the products that are required to help save lives are platelets, plasma and cryoprecipitate.
Minister Cummings noted that even as the Ministry seeks to raise the level and quality of public health care services delivery to the people living in Guyana, the NBTS will continue to benefit from capacity building training programmes aimed at boosting the quality of service it provides.
She highlighted, too, that the World Health Organisation [WHO] along with its various international partners has continued to place great emphasis on the importance of universal access to health care services in saving lives and ending extreme poverty.
She noted, “Our goal at the Ministry of Public Health is to ensure that these goals are realized maximally.”
One of the important programmes promoted by WHO that has gained significant attention and support internationally is the blood transfusion safety programme. This programme, according to Dr. Cummings, is particularly designed for countries to establish and maintain self-sustaining national blood systems to ensure timely access to safe and sufficient supplies of blood and blood products as well as to develop good transfusion practices to meet the needs of patients. She informed that “many studies have revealed that blood transfusion saves lives and improves the overall health of donors. However, many patients who require blood do not have timely access to safe blood.”
She added, “Providing safe and adequate blood could be an integral part of every country’s national health care policy and infrastructure.”
According to Dr. Cummings, the Ministry of Public Health, and by extension Guyana, “recognizes and acknowledges this significant need. As a consequence, I am very pleased to say here in Guyana we have the NBTS which is a modern facility that utilizes international best practices.”
Minister Cummings added that the most recent addition to the NBTS will unquestionably serve to boost the capacity at the NBTS. “Using the Apheresis Machine gives a higher volume of concentrated plasma or platelets from each donation. Although in our laboratory we can separate plasma and platelets from whole blood donations… the Apheresis Machine produces more plasma and platelets for patients in need…,” said Dr. Cummings.
Instead of a technician taking the necessary measures to extract blood from a patient, they are now only required to attach a needle designed to be painless to donors and follow instructions produced by the machine.
So sophisticated is the machine that it is able to receive blood removed from a donor’s body, separate it, with good purity, into various components and return what is not needed to the body. Once the process is completed, blood can be transfused immediately to multiple patients in need.
According to Dr. Lewis, “This equipment can boost the quality of blood products that we could produce in the future and the quantity also.” But according to, Dr. Lewis, two more Apheresis Machine could further optimize the operation of the NBTS.
He also assured that the acquisition of the current machine would not make redundant staffers of the NBTS as the former way of donation and separation of blood products will not be abandoned but rather boosted with the machine.

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