In order to ensure that safe blood is transfused at the point of care, the State Blood Transfusion Council (SBTC) will soon initiate a haemovigilance project at Mahanagar Blood Bank attached to JJ Hospital on a pilot basis. SBTC is the apex body of all 229 blood banks in the state which collected nearly 15 lakh units of blood last year.

National Blood Policy, 2002 requires health service organisations to participate in haemovigilance activities conducted by the organisation or state or national levels and to ensure that adverse events are included in incident management and investigation systems. Says Dr Sanjay Jadhav, director, SBTC, "State government has given the approval to the much awaited pilot project which will help JJ Hospital to provide us valid data to increase safety and reliability of the blood transfusion process. The information will also come handy in framing new guidelines as blood safety is vital for the prevention and control of transfusion transmitted infections."

The haemovigilance project is a part of the state government's efforts to provide adequate, safe and quality blood in an easy accessible manner.

Haemovigilance programme is organised by the Haemovigilance Advisory Committee. The committee comprises experts in transfusion medicine, science, nursing and epidemiology from both the private and public health care sectors. This group provides advice to governments on adverse event reporting originating from health service organisations and on national transfusion safety priorities.

He added, “We plan to implement haemovigilance across the state. We will involve all stakeholders — clinical staff, transfusion labs, transfusion committees, regulatory agencies and national health authorities.”

Western countries like UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherland and Newzealand have adopted haemovigilance programmes for blood safety and quality management.