Purchase instead of producing

Donor blood processing center of the Kyiv City Blood Center will be closed on February 16, 2013. This was reported by Oleksii Davydenko, deputy of the UDAR Party faction in the Kyiv City Council, referring to the order of the head of the Kyiv City State Administration Oleksandr Popov. The deputy stressed that the department of the blood processing center produces four types of blood products, including those for intensive care and burn units of all hospitals in the capital. This department has a license for processing blood and provides Kyiv hospitals with it for free. Thus, according to Davydenko, city authorities threaten the supply of intensive care units, ambulances, and burn centers with donor blood and plasma.

“Starting from February, practically the whole municipal center for blood processing will be closed and all hospitals in Kyiv will have to purchase blood products from commercial companies. That is cynical lobbying and greed for profit at the expense of the seriously ill patients,” said the outraged deputy.

The KCSA, in its turn, has announced that instead of the department for producing blood products of the Kyiv City Blood Center there will be created a department for controlling donor blood components. The goal of the reform is to bring the production of medicine in accordance with international GMP standards. Plasma, produced in the Kyiv City Blood Center and the departments for blood transfusion at municipal hospitals, will be sold to the institutions that produce blood products from donor plasma according to the international standards. The money earned from selling the donor plasma will be used for purchasing the necessary immunobiological medicine. This algorithm, according to the initiators of the reform, will provide patients of Kyiv hospitals with blood products in sufficient quantities and in proper assortment. They also assure that the quality of the product will be high and the price will be lower than the cost of manufacturing those products in the Blood Center.

COMMENTARY

Liudmyla ZANEVSKA, head physician of the Kyiv City Blood Center:

“Nobody is closing the Blood Center. Patients of Kyiv hospitals will be provided with blood products and components made from donor blood free of charge the way it was and the way it will continue to be. It’s just that the department of the blood processing was created in 1963, that is why the equipment used there is outdated and the facilities do not quite fit. We will soon move to another place on Zoolohichna Street, which will be adjusted for us. Currently it is nearly impossible to work normally since we have no new technologies, simply nothing. The old technologies are very costly: for that money we can purchase good imported medicine at much lower prices than the cost of its production on site. The old equipment takes twice as much time and it regularly needs to be repaired. The newest equipment in the center was purchased in 2001, the rest has been used since the 1960s-1970s and the 1980s.

“That is why we made this decision, especially in the context of the difficult economic situation. When the center will move to Zoolohichna Street we plan to resume the work of this department. However, in order to keep the department operating we have to process 2.5 tons of plasma per year according to the instructions of the Ministry of Health on staff quota. In the past three years the Center processed 1.1 to 1.2 tons of plasma per year, which is half of what is expected. According to Ministry of Health requirements, we do not have the right to keep such department, especially in the condition it is now and with such old equipment. Nobody wants to have blood products from the pot transfused in his own blood, instead, everyone wants to receive high quality, certified medicine that has undergone all stages of control. We cannot do this and what we can is very costly.

“There are not enough donors. If there are more donors and we are able to process 2.5 tons of plasma per year, there will be no questions. But for now we have the opportunity to purchase good medical products, without wasting water, electricity, human resources, or high quality alcohol. Processing of one ton of blood requires one ton of alcohol. It is unprofitable. We plan to open a donor department and a department for blood processing at Zoolohichna Street. At the present moment the preparations are 80 percent done. By the time the center will be able to start its work, there we have a year supply of blood products, therefore, people will receive it free of charge as they used to.”