Reps pledge support to blood service delivery

The House of Representative Committee on Specialty Healthcare has pledged its support to advocate for increased budgetary allocation to improve blood service delivery in the country.Lawan Ali-Shettima, Deputy Chairman of the committee, stated this during an oversight visit and roundtable discussion with the management of the National Blood Service Commission (NBSC), in Abuja.Ali-Shettima said the visit was to discuss critical issues, especially their challenges with a view to address them and improve access to safe and quality blood service and products.'We are looking at the way people are willingly and voluntarily coming to donate blood in this establishment.'So, I believe with support they will acquire more equipment, more facilities to expand their offices to zonal levels.'This is what we are suggesting. So we will do our best to see that legislatively we intervene by providing more means of funding for them to get more equipment,' he said.On his part, Prof. Saleh Yuguda, Director-General, NBS C, said that inadequate funding had affected their operations and access to safe blood services across the country.According to Yuguda, with more funding, the commission will be able to enhance access to safe and affordable blood components to carter for the needs of the over 200 million Nigerians.'The major challenges we have across the country is that of equipment and other infrastructure in most of our centres, which are very old.'We are trying to see if we can liase with the National Assembly, to come to our aid, so that we can get more funding for the commission.'I believe that with their support, we will be able to achieve that,' he said.While noting the scarcity of blood during emergencies, led to several deaths, Yuguda encouraged the people to regularly and voluntarily donate blood to save more lives.The NBSC relies on a pool of regular donations by voluntary, unpaid blood donors, it currently collects and screens approximately 25,000 units of blood from voluntary donors annually.Less th an five per cent of the total blood donation in Nigeria is being sourced from voluntary donors, with bulk of it on commercial, thus subjecting recipients to the risk of infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, Syphilis among others.An estimated 1.23 million units of blood are collected across several facilities each year, 90 per cent of which are from paid commercial donors.Source: News Agency of Nigeria