Law against sale of blood in the offing
People donate blood during a donation drive at City Square in Kampala recently. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
- UBTS on average collects up to 300,000 units of blood, below the World Health Organisation recommendation of 450,000 units (one percent of the population).
- Experiences by patients, confirmed by officials at UBTS, reveal that they are forced to pay for blood in some health facilities yet it is released free of charge from the blood banks.
The Uganda Blood Transfusion Services (UBTS) under the Ministry of Health is proposing a law stipulating tough penalties for anyone caught selling blood.
The development, they say, will be key in addressing the persistent concern of health facilities and workers putting a price on blood, which is donated freely by individuals.
The revelation was made by UBTS officials during the launch of a blood donation drive supported by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) to collect 3,000 units of blood in Kampala yesterday.
“We need to come up with our own law, which has started to be debated internally,” Mr William Mugisha, the principal blood donor coordinator, said.
Experiences by patients, confirmed by officials at UBTS, reveal that they are forced to pay for blood in some health facilities yet it is released free of charge from the blood banks.
Mr Ambrose Mugume, the senior blood donor recruiter at UBTS, said the absence of a specific legislation has resulted in many of those caught in the act to walk away scot free.
“This blood leaves all blood banks country wide freely, nobody pays for it. We have arrested some people, taken them to the police, but when police write to the DPP, they ask what penalty is prescribed for such a person dealing in this. There is nothing in the Penal Code,” he said
Mr Mugume cited the shortage of blood as one of the reasons health facilities and workers sell blood.
“Let’s make blood available all the time, then the unethical people who benefit from shortages fail to sell, “ he said.
UBTS on average collects up to 300,000 units of blood, below the World Health Organisation recommendation of 450,000 units (one percent of the population).
“It leaves a gap that we need to fill to ensure all Ugandans in need of blood can access it” Mr Mugume said.
The shortfall, officials say, disproportionately affects persons with rare blood types, Rhesus negative, including A- negative, B- negative, O-negative and AB.
Donation drive
It is against this backdrop that the
NSSF in partnership with the UBTS yesterday launched a campaign to collect 3,000 units of rare blood types currently in high demand, yet collection remains low.
Ms Barbra Arimi, NSSF head of marketing and corporate affairs, said the fund has injected Shs20m to facilitate the three-day drive that will be conducted in Kampala, Hoima, Masaka and Jinja districts. The drive will run from June 19 to 21.
“We are focusing on the rare blood types, if you are aware of your blood group and fall in that category, please it is your day to help save lives,” Ms Arimi said.
Ms Juliet Adong, the principal assistant secretary at UBTS, said they normally collect less negative blood types compared to the positives despite the high demand of the latter.
“In general, patients with RH-positive blood groups can receive blood from either RH-negative or RH-positive blood groups while patients with RH-negative can only receive from RH-negative blood donors.
Specifically for the O-ve blood group which is the universal donor, we usually receive only one percent of that blood group from our collections. An increase in rh-ve blood donors will help us avert death that would arise due to lack of rare blood types,” Ms Adong said
Statistics of 2022 collections show that only 2 percent of blood collected was O- negative, the universal donor.
A-ve was 4 percent, AB at 1 percent while the B-ve and AB-ve fell below 1 percent.
