DFID group urges Bauchi gov’t to provide functional blood banks to curb maternal deaths

RUTH DAVID, Bauchi

A call has been made to the Bauchi State Government to provide functional blood banks in all the health facilities in the state to curb the rising cases of maternal deaths.

A DFID project, the Mamaye/Evidence for Action, further urged the State Government to provide the facilities in order to check the rise in cases of deaths during child births by women in the state.

State Coordinator, Evidence for Action, Ahmed M. Ahmed made the call in Azare Local Government Area of the state, Wednesday, when the Mamaye Community launched a campaign for blood donation at the General hospital premises in Azare.

Ahmed also urged the Bauchi state government to provide electricity transformer as well as linking the General Hospital to the Jos Electricity Distribution company to end the current challenges the hospital is facing among others

Ahmed told the gathering that the WHO report 2010N said 32 per cent of women die globally as a result of blood loss during pregnancy and childbirth and lamented that these are some of the problems that lead to death of women during pregnancy and delivery.

The campaign yielded result as many participants went to the laboratory to donate blood, but their zeal met with stumbling block as the only functional blood bank cannot meet the required optimal temperature.

When the Mamaye campaign team contacted the Chief Medical officer Dr. Baba Shehu, submitted that the hospital requires equipment aside from power supply.

Dr. Shehu said that the hospital is not connected to power supply (Jos Electricity Distribution Company (JEDCO) as the 10KVA generating set provided by the local government council has broken down for long. He adduced that the state Government is doing everything possible to meet up with most of the challenges.

According to him, he has submitted the list of all that is needed for the hospital to be able to give excellent services to patients in the area.

Furthermore investigation revealed that the Blood bank section has two blood bank with only one functional while the source of power supply to the laboratory is Sumec 2700 generating set to power the only functional blood bank in the hospital which could not run for more than eight hours while the pines of blood store require 24 hours cold.

A senior laboratory technician told newsmen that the department is in urgent need of power supply and functional blood bank to keep the blood collected under optimal temperature of 2 to 6 degrees centigrade ‘as anything below that will lead to the expiration of the blood.’

“We cannot collect blood and keep: we only take blood from relative’s donor when a patient needs transfusion. Delay in sourcing for blood to transfuse to women during complications in pregnancy and delivery account for deaths of numerous women in health facilities”, he added.