The Ministry of Health has announced that it has sourced almost 1,000 much-needed blood bags and these should be in the island today.
The ministry has also said it would implement measures to ensure that the crisis which faced the Blood Bank over the past week would never be repeated.
Rudyard Spencer, the health minister, yesterday announced that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago had agreed to send 990 blood bags to Jamaica.
Spencer also promised that an additional supply of bags is to be sent to Jamaica from the United States Red Cross. However, he did not say when those bags would arrive.
The National Blood Transfusion Service (Blood Bank) has been haemorrhaging for the past two months when it started to run out of bags. At least three centres had to suspend the collection of blood while efforts to increase supply were put on hold.
The facility had also run out of the reagent used to test the blood, but Spencer said this was received last Friday.
Coming month end
On Tuesday, Spencer initially claimed that a shipment of 8,998 bags would be in the island this week but he later recanted while announcing that the ship would not get to Jamaica until closer to the end of this month.
Yesterday, Spencer appeared to be pointing the finger at officials at the Blood Bank as he announced that the health ministry had assumed the direct management of the procurement process at the institution.
The health minister made no comment on the reports that the suppliers had held on to the bags because they were owed millions of dollars, but hinted that all was not well.
"There will be a review of the contractual relationships between the Blood Bank and its suppliers," Spencer said in a release.
According to the minister, while in the best of times there has to be careful management of the country's financial resources and inventory, that becomes even more important in these challenging times.
He said steps would be taken to activate an inventory management system that was installed at the facility one year ago.
Spencer also ordered an audit of the procurement and information management systems at the Blood Bank.
"This is expected to begin on Monday and a report is to be submitted in a month, after which procedural manuals will be developed," Spencer said.
arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com
Spencer has been under mounting pressure since Tuesday when reports surfaced about the crisis facing the Blood Bank and other challenges facing medical personnel.
Yesterday, Opposition Spokesman on Health, Dr Fenton Ferguson, charged that the latest developments were indications that the sector was in crisis.
Ferguson, who is slated to meet with Spencer today, argued that the problems were linked to the Government's underfunding of the sector.