Mumbai: The JJ Hospital has been seeking to oust from its campus the Sir JJ Mahanagar blood bank, which is facing regulatory action from the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) over alleged violation of protocols, hospital sources told HIndustan Times.
The blood bank functions out of a 10,000-square feet heritage building within the JJ hospital premises, but has no connection with the Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, said hospital dean Dr Ajay Bhandarwar.
“We need the building for our expansion – for new departments like emergency medicine, transfusion medicine and geriatric medicine. We have been asking them to vacate the space for years, but to no avail,” Dr Bhandarwar told HT.
The hospital has its own blood bank for its own patients and surgeries as also to meet commitments LIKE providing free blood to prisoners, remand home inmates, thalassemic patients, and senior citizens, Dr Bhandarwar said.
“They (Mahanagar blood bank) use our brand name, operate from our space, but serve us no purpose. They do not even provide blood free for our patients,” a senior official from JJ Hospital said.
Spread over 46 acres, the JJ Hospital has 1,352 beds, 250 ICU beds and a daily footfall of more than 3,000 patients at the OPD. Hospital sources said that while their annual blood requirement was 12,000-15,000 units, they barely managed to get 10,000 units due to duplication of donation camps organised by Mahanagar and the hospital’s own blood bank.
An official from Mahanagar blood bank said they arrange 25-30 blood donation camps in a year, and manage to collect 25,000-30,000 bags of blood.
“We provide blood to other agencies only from surplus stock to avoid wastage, as per norms. But we cannot issue free blood to JJ hospital as we have to levy testing charges as per rates determined by the National Blood Transfusion Council (NBTC) and the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC),” the official said.
The blood bank charges government hospitals ₹350 per blood bag while private hospitals are charged ₹1860 as per existing rates, the official said.
