Stench of failed policies at Coast region’s facility
A chocking stench clogs the air at the Coast Regional Blood Transfusion Centre (CRBTC), which is adjacent to Coast Provincial General Hospital.
Medical Laboratory Technologies officer Cleophas Wayodi says the smell was a result of decomposing blood emanating from the facility’s cold room that broke down seven years ago.
“The institution has two refrigerators and two deep freezers which replaced the cold room.
The four are shared in storing reagents, blood and related products several years after the cold room broke down,” Wayodi said in an interview with People Daily.
According to the officer, a blood screening machine which also broke down, was serving six Coast counties.
“As we speak there is no screening of blood and in case of an emergency, we are forced to take the blood stored in the two freezers to private hospitals for screening before it is sent back and distributed to where it is required,” said Wayodi.
He says the current situation is as a result of donors pulling out, in September last year, saying the Kenya government has been unable to sustain regional blood transfusion centres due to lack blood bags, screening agents, syringes, protective gears and under staffing.
Before the funding was cut, Ayodi said the number of staff at CRBTC was 34, but the number has since dropped to just 11.
The officer said in the past two years, the centre had seen the number of blood donors drop from at least 20 daily to just one or two per day since September last year. He attributed the sharp fall in donations to the withdrawal of funding .
Consumption at the Coast General Hospital remains high at 80 per cent.
“In the past we used to collect 2,500 pints of blood yearly, however this has gone down to 800. This blood is not enough,” he said.
Wayodi dismissed claims by Health cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe that cartels are responsible for the blood shortage being witnessed in the country.
He said there has never been a special budget to cater for blood transfusion services in the country, adding that the dependency on donors had led to the collapse of the blood transfusion services in the country.
The officer said that Kenyans donate blood for free, whenever they need blood from private hospitals, they must cough up to Sh7,000.
“We know of cases where we give blood for free to private hospitals but whenever you need blood transfusion in those hospitals, you are charged heavily for it. The government should come up with a law to regulate this,” he said.
