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The Financial Component (FC) of the Safe Blood Transfusion Project funded by KfW, presented results of the Inception Phase (September 2010 to March 2011) and future plans for the period April 2011 to August 2014 in the Inception Workshop held on March 30, 2011 in Islamabad.
The Workshop was organized by EPOS Health Management – the consulting firm for FC in collaboration with National Blood Transfusion Program (NBTP). It was attended by National and Provincial/FATA & AJK Blood Transfusion Programme Managers/Focal Persons, Senior Representatives of Health Department, AFIT, Fatmid & Husani Blood Banks, KfW, GIZ, EPOS and GFA. The Workshop provided an opportunity to comment on the presentations and the plan.
Dr. Hasan Abbas Zaheer, National Manager, NBTP opened the Workshop and presented the Workshop objectives, characteristics of the national programme and the project. He also gave a brief overview of recent Blood Safety Reform Initiative. He said that in the last few years, Government of Pakistan has been very active in introducing Blood Safety Reforms in the country and Ministry of Health (MoH) has been working on the reforms in collaboration and support of German Government.
Recently, MoH has adopted a Health Policy that stressed to include blood safety as one of the priority area. NBTP adopted and reviewed the existing blood policy and proposed for the establishment of National Blood Transfusion Service in Pakistan. NBTP revised National Strategic Framework for 2008-13 which highlights the fundamental principles and priorities for the blood safety in the country.
NBTP is actively organizing National Steering Committee (NSC) meetings and working with provinces to establish Provincial Steering Committees. Safe Blood Transfusion Law at Federal level in consultation with all the Provincial Partners and other stakeholders has been adopted and processed for approval. The idea for adopting new law is to update and bring uniformity in all the blood safety legislation.
The Project will support for the development of an independent, national, safe and efficiently operated blood transfusion service. The currently fragmented system without adequate donor selection and quality control shall be phased out and replaced by a centralized system managed by National and Provincial Blood Transfusion Programmes and Authorities guided by the National Blood Policy.
NBTP is receiving Technical Assistance (TA) from GIZ through GFA (a German Consulting Firm) to achieve the overall objective of the programme. The overall objective of the programme is to provide better access to the population of Pakistan to safe blood transfusion services and blood products.
Dr. Gunter Merk, International Team Leader, EPOS Health Management gave an overview of the Financial Cooperation component funded by KfW – German Development Bank.
Dr. Guenter said that the consulting services for FC measures are provided by a consortium composed of two German companies – EPOS Health Management and GOPA Consultants – and a Malaysian consulting company – Mediconsult joined by a Pakistan consulting company, M/s Shagufta & Munir Associates for the construction measures.
Dr. Guenter gave an overview of FC component. The FC will contribute to building up a countrywide network of Regional Blood Centers (RBCs) linked to existing Hospital Blood Banks. Following will be outputs of FC in a first project phase 2010-2015:
Output 1: Construction and equipment of 13 regional blood centres in all provinces, AJK, FATA and ICT
Output 2: Supply of medical equipment for up to 78 hospital blood banks in all provinces, AJK, FATA and ICT
In collaboration with technical component (TC):
Output 3: Installation of a central information system for RBCs & N/PBTP
Output 4: Mobilisation of voluntary blood donations
Output 5: User training for equipment and management training for blood banks
In addition, KfW provides consulting services to the programme at national and provincial level. The financial co-operation grant of 15 million EUR equals about 1.725 billion PKR (1 € = 115 PKR).
He said that the Inception Phase served the Consultant Team and the partners to mobilise the Project Team and set up an office structure. It also reviewed the Project design and progress achieved with TC support. During this phase, the consultant carried out a situation analysis and needs assessment for the FC project components and prepared a framework for the implementation period.
Mr. Zahid Mahmood, National Team Leader EPOS and architect M. Munir presented the results of the Inception Phase of FC component together with a plan for the detailed planning and implementation phase. All stakeholders provided their feedback/ comments on the presentations and the plan.
Later, Dr. Zahid Hasan Ansari, Provincial Manager-Sindh, Prof. Dr. Mehfooz-ur-Rehman, Provincial Manager/Director IBTS Punjab, Prof. Dr. Fazle Raziq, Provincial Manager-KPK, Dr. Sher Zaman, Provincial Manager-Balochistan, Dr. Naveed Ahmed Focal Person-AJK, Dr. Sartaj Khan, BT Focal Person FATA gave an updated on the Blood Transfusion Services of their respective area and operationalization of the PC-1s.
Dr. Hasan Abbas Zaheer gave a presentation on the functional brief for Regional Blood Centres prepared with help of technical assistance of GIZ/GFA, EPOS team and international and national transfusion experts. He informed that the regional blood centers will collect, process, test, store and supply blood products to attached hospitals.
Donor management unit of RBC works for donor mobilization and motivation, recruitment and selection, blood collection, documentation, donor care satisfaction, donor retention and education. After the collection blood, it will go to blood processing unit. Blood processing unit will work for blood bag registration, blood component preparation, storage, labeling of verified blood prior to storage in the inventory and distribution unit. Another unit will be inventory and distribution unit which will work for plan and management inventory, blood store inventory, maintain cold chain facility and release and dispatch verified blood and blood products.
Thalassemia unit and reference labs will not be accommodated in the regional blood centre due to the technical, organizational and financial constraints. The existing facilities will be used for the functions in province/area.
Paul Kohorst, Team Leader, GFA shared the activities and plan of the Technical Component. He also presented the Road Map for Joint SBTP Implementation. All the participants were provided with a copy of the Road Map for Joint SBTP Implementation.
Regarding the institutional implementer, he said that the Financial and Technical Cooperation team will be needing a helping hand form all the partners. The National Strategic Framework is grouping major activities in four key areas i.e. restructuring of the system according to WHO, developing of required resources for operational assistance, analyzing of all the steps of a core business in the transfer chain and sustainable and long term planning.
The Technical Cooperation will work on the introduction of quality system and proper document required for data management, information and communication technology. In future, there is need to work on mobilizing the country in order to get voluntary donation. There is also need for long-term planning and with the development of documentations, data collection process will be improved.
The current law is not homogenous and there is a need to take care about it during the implementation. We will work on curricula for the training of operating staff and on the development of rule of business for donor management.
Dr. Masooma M. Zaidi, representative of KfW/Pakistan in her closing remarks said that like TB Day, HIV day, World Blood Donor Day could be used as the entry point to create and get into the campaign of awareness for the community.
She urged all the stakeholders to focus on working in their own respective organization and the motivation should come from us. There is a need to expedite the process and settle down the issues the earliest so as to go forward.
She hoped to see the project really works as a catalyst in making contribution in the development of the country. It is the first and only nationwide project of KfW so it is extremely crucial to prove it in the current phase and only then we will be able to move on to the second phase depending upon the outcomes.
Dr. J. P. Steinmann, Principal Advisor, GIZ Health Sector Support, Pakistan said that each Pakistani citizen should have access to safe blood and blood products within one hour. We should keep in mind that it is the ultimate goal and is a multi stakeholder project. We should use it as potential and move forward. Legislation should be incorporated in the law in a uniform legislation. We should have to look on existing structure.
In the end, Dr. Hasan Abbas Zaheer giving his vote of thanks acknowledged the support of provincial program and different partners. He said that the Project is an essential province oriented and change in the promotion of blood safety in the country cannot take place without the full involvement and commitment of the province. He also thanked EPOS team for excellent arrangements and timely sharing of working papers/presentations with all stakeholders.