Authorities point to Stat Lab in blood scandal
The Minister of Health, the ministry’s Chief Executive Officer and the Director of Health Services, met the press this afternoon in an attempt to tell the public how three patients at the K.H.M.H. could have been transfused with HIV infected blood. While the authorities claim they are still unable to pinpoint the exact place where the error was made, they are looking closely at the Stat Lab, that part of the Central Laboratory, where the Blood Bank’s blood is tested before use.
Dr. Errol Vanzie, Director of Health Services
“In this particular case, the request came late afternoon and part of the practice, when the blood bank is going to close and you don’t have the result of the test for the blood, the blood is tagged red, meaning not screened, and sent over to the Stat Lab, at K.H.M.H. Once the result is available, then the information is passed onto the Stat Lab for decision, this is outside of the normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, meaning during normal working hours, the result of the test will be passed onto the supervisor for verification and that information is passed onto the Blood Bank, which in turn will get in touch with the Stat Lab and determine whether the blood is safe or should be discarded.”
Jose Coye, Minister of Health
“It is just not feasible to have the Blood Bank open twenty-four hours. At the closing, when fresh blood is needed, whatever fresh blood is here will be transferred to the Stat Lab, even though it has not yet been screened. But the precaution is taken to make sure it is properly tagged, that the blood is not cleared. Now once it is cleared from the Central Lab, that is the communication that needs to be made in a more verbal way, rather than how it is normally made and that’s a weakness in the system. The area where the weakness is, we’re yet to continue the investigation as to how the communication went.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Cause it left there to the hospital right? That was were it left.”
Jose Coye
“That’s right.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Should a bag of blood be shared, and with three people at that?”
Dr. Errol Vanzie
“It’s not only rare, extremely unfortunate that because the initial transfusion was to a child that used very limited amount of blood and we had other patients required blood, it was decided to share the blood. Most of the time this will not happen as because one patient would use the entire blood.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“And small amounts are usually used for children.”
