Maharashtra health ministry has launched a unique haemovigilance programme, to track and monitor the quality of blood and blood products supplied to the patients, right from the point of collection to the transfusion stage in a bid to safeguard the healthcare interest of the patients in the state.

Through this initiative, which is a first in the country adopted by any state for checking the quality of the blood, the government aims to bring in and adopt a strong monitoring mechanism that will ensure availability of only high quality blood and blood products to the patients. It is understood that the government is enforcing and running this programme through the Maharashtra State Blood Transfusion Council (MSBTC) starting with Mumbai and its satellite cities, on a pilot basis.

According to Dr Sanjaykumar Jadhav, assistant director, SBTC, Maharashtra, under this pilot programme, all the blood banks involved in the collection and supply of the blood and blood products, along with all the hospitals acquiring the blood from the projected vicinity or area will be under constant vigilance by their highly trained team. At present, the J J Mahanagar Rakta Pedhi and 65 registered blood banks in Mumbai will be under the purview of this programme, which will gradually be extended to other areas as well, based on the outcome from this programme.

Dr Jadhav who is also an expert advisor in the panel member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) added, “One of the major thrust behind initiating this programme within the state is to control and completely nullify any incidence of human error, right from the stage of collection to dissemination of the same. Blood is an important lifesaving component and we want to see to it that the blood that is collected and transfused in patients are of highest quality without any slightest incidence of contamination.”

He further informed that, as per the requirements, state government had set aside around Rs.50 lakh initially for this pilot project and stressed that since it will be adopted in a phase wise manner the estimated cost involved in carrying out this project will be difficult to predict. However, he assured that all the steps are being taken by the government to adopt this programme across the state based on the results of this project, so that maximum benefit can be reaped out to strengthen and re define the blood donation and transfusion system adopted throughout the state.