Mumbai: The State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) is reviving the forgotten practice of auditing blood banks across the state, but with a twist: instead of transfusion officers, the ultimate responsibility for the quarterly audits will now lie with the institution heads, such as the deans of state-run medical colleges, the director of BMC hospitals, and the heads of private, trust-based blood banks.The final reports of these audits must be submitted to the FDA and the SBTC. The move comes after the FDA took action against the JJ Mahanagar Blood Bank over the improper disposal of blood bags, defective equipment, and inadequate sterilisation in blood component production.However, for the past decade, this self-audit, the report of which had to be submitted to the FDA, had come to a halt. “Blood transfusion officers had stopped conducting them, and the FDA had also stopped asking for them. They had an 11-page checklist document,” said a blood bank officer from a BMC hospital.Notably, FDA still conducts annual inspections of blood banks. A recent SBTC circular stated that the revived audits will require an evaluation of both technical standards and available resources within each blood banks.Among the many audit conditions, one is to ensure that processing charges for blood and blood components are transparently displayed in a visible spot within the blood bank. Inspectors are also required to audit the physical stock of blood bags. This includes checking for damaged, unused, or discarded stock, the total number of bags purchased or received against the actual blood collected, and the remaining empty bags. The audit further requires blood banks to disclose any excess collection against their average requirement over the past three years. “If bulk transfers are being made from that blood banks to other states, information regarding the rate at which it is being distributed must be provided,” the circular states.Dr Shailesh Mohite, director of major BMC hospitals, said chief medical superintendent Dr Chandrakant Pawar would be responsible for six blood banks across peripheral hospitals. Dr Pawar was unavailable for a comment.One BMC hospital blood bank is already outsourced, and the other five in peripheral hospitals are to be run on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis. SBTC director Dr Suhas Mohnalkar said, “It is still the BMC that would be responsible for their audits. We did not ask them to run them on a PPP basis. It continues to be their responsibility as long as it is within BMC premises.”He added that for private, trust-run banks not affiliated with any public institutions, their respective trust heads would be held responsible for these audits.
