***********************************************************
The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The Hong Kong Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service (BTS) made the following announcement today (September 18) about a blood collection incident:
The BTS arranged a group donation at its Central District Donor Centre (CDC) on June 29 (Sunday) with total of 52 units of blood collected. In normal procedure, all collected blood in donor centres must be arranged to transport to the BTS Headquarters in the same evening of the collection day for proper storage. Since it was the first time for the CDC to arrange a blood donation event, which is normally closed every Sundays, the responsible staff for the activity forgot to make special arrangement with the contractors to transport the donated blood from CDC to the Headquarters.
The collected blood was kept in the designated blood bins at CDC at temperature range (i.e. 18 to 24 degrees Celsius) suitable for blood storage. When the incident was noticed in the morning of June 30 (Monday), the BTS had immediately arranged the transportation of the batch of blood concerned to the Headquarters. All collected blood units then underwent stringent tests to determine whether they were safe for use. It was found that four units could not be used as they had not been processed within 24 hours after its collection, while the remaining 48 units had not exceeded the 24-hour limit for processing and had been processed into blood components for patient treatment after ascertaining their safety standard.
The BTS is extremely concerned about the incident and had immediately conducted a thorough investigation into its causes. A number of recommendations have been made to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents. Two main recommendations are as follows: To arrange group donation activities held at CDC on a Sunday as mobile collection activities so as to avoid confusion and ensure it would be handled in accordance with the established system for mobile collection service, including blood collection logistics, and also to remind the staff concerned to follow-up with the transportation of blood; the staff who is in charge of the activity must contact the blood transport contractor at the end of the activity to ensure immediate transport of blood back to the BTS Headquarters.
The BTS has contacted the affected blood donors to explain the incident and extend apologies. All staff members have been reminded to strictly observe the procedure of collecting and processing of blood units. The BTS has followed-up on the staff concerned according to established human resources guidelines and a verbal warning was given.
The incident had been reported to the BTS management on the day of the event. It was recently reported to the Hospital Authority Head Office (HAHO), and decided to announce to the public after deliberation. The BTS admitted that there was mis-judgement in the nature of the incident and had failed to follow established procedure to notify HAHO and make the public announcement immediately after the incident. It will carry out a detailed review and formulate improvement measures. The BTS sincerely apologise to the public and pledges to announce relevant information to the public in a more timely manner in future.
Ends/Thursday, September 18, 2014
Issued at HKT 20:21
NNNN
