Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) has a centralised state-of-the-art blood bank; however patients often faced problems due to acute staff shortage at the blood bank.
Sources told Pakistan Today that though the blood bank was equipped with modern machinery but the shortage of staff was badly affecting its performance.
They said that there was huge burden on the PIMS blood bank, because most of the people preferred to visit the hospital; hence they could not get quality service according to the standard operating procedure.
They said that they were making efforts to provide quality services to the patients, but with such limited manpower and resources it was next to impossible.
A senior official in the hospital said that patients especially from remote areas faced great hardships due to non-availability of blood at the main emergency ward of the hospital.
The official said that once he was doing duty in the emergency ward and a patient was brought who needed blood. He said that he instantly ran to the blood bank to take blood from there; however till that the patient was expired.
Raja Zahid, a 30-year-old, whose father was admitted in the hospital, said that they faced great problems when they brought the patient to the hospital, because of non-availability of blood at the emergency.
He said that they were asked to donate blood only then they would be provided blood, because he said that blood was given only in extreme emergency cases.
When contacted, Dr Wasim Khawaja said that PIMS blood bank provided lot of blood to poor patients and those patients who had no attendants or in serious emergency cases daily.
He said that a lot of blood has been provided to Thalassaemia patients annually. Khawaja said that the attendants were convinced to donate blood, because 90 per cent of cases were not of real emergency, but the relatives/attendants hesitated to donate blood.
To a question about availability of blood in emergency ward, he said that it was not the case that the patients were provided blood instantly on their arrival, but they have to pass through special process i.e. grouping, cross-matching and maintenance of blood.
He said that nurses on duty took sample of patients’ blood immediately and brought purified blood from blood bank straightaway, adding that there was no culture of voluntary blood donation; hence they have to give the blood in lieu of purified blood for their patients.
However, he said that blood has been provided to patients even if attendants were not willing to give blood, because saving a human life was their top most priority.
