PESHAWAR, July 1: The NWFP authorities have failed to implement the Transfusion of Safe Blood Act 1999, law regulating blood banks, despite having been promulgated three years ago, doctors told this correspondent on Tuesday.

Sources in the health department attributed the lack of enforcement of the provincial legislation on inadequate infrastructure and shortage of trained staff, adding that it was wreaking havoc on the lives of unsuspecting patients.

A haematologist said that when blood banks at the three teaching hospitals in Peshawar had no haematologists, one should not expect them to be employed in hospitals at the district headquarter hospitals.

The provincial assembly had passed the Transfusion of Safe Blood Bill on October 7, 1999 to regulate the transfusion of safe blood and its products. The law was enforced on October 13, 1999, immediately after receiving the assent of the NWFP Governor.

According to the Act, a five-member Safe Blood Authority was required to be established under the director-general health services to ensure that blood banks were managed by qualified professionals.

It was meant to ensure bio-safety measures specified in the schedule issued by the World Health Organisation. The Authority remains to be established.

Sources said that the possibility of blood recipients contracting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis was high in the absence of a regulatory authority, adding that there had been many such instances, which had gone unreported.

The Act envisages establishment of a separate department, proper maintenance of equipments and sufficient staff for the purpose of receiving blood donations and for selection, handling, care and safety of the donors.

All blood banks, the Act states, should possess equipments for haemoglobin estimation, blood grouping, cross-matching, antibodies detection and screening of infectious agents, including HIV/AIDS, hepatitis viruses, malaria, syphilis and other communicable diseases.

According to WHO’s guidelines, every blood bank should have one haematologist, microscope and centrifuge machine in addition to a trained technician and refrigerator to store the collected blood at 4 degrees Centigrade. WHO guidelines also require blood banks to have beds for donors, blood pressure set, kits for detecting HIV and hepatitis, cross matching and blood grouping.

Blood banks at teaching hospitals, like Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex, sources said, employed doctors called blood bank officers to run these institutions.