SPECIALISTS

Dr. G P Saluja

Sr. Consultant & Head, Dept. of Blood Transfusion Medicine

Quality has been built into the blood bank right from the design stage. The salient features of the blood bank include:

• Well defined, demarcated public and restricted areas. The public area houses the reception, waiting, refreshment, blood donation room, apheresis room and doctor’s room. The restricted area includes serological testing, transfusion transmissible infections (TTIs) testing, blood storage and component preparation including its storage.
• The best of breed advanced state-of-the-art equipment.
• 24 hours power supply, which is vital to maintain the requisite temperature in blood bank.
• Blood bank is licensed under drugs and cosmetic act 1940 and rules 1945.
• Bio-medical waste disposal in place as per guidelines of Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules,1998.

• The blood bank follows very stringent and strict internal quality control system under supervision of highly qualified and experienced Blood Transfusion Consultant. The standard operating procedures are followed for each and every procedure.
• The blood bank also participates in BEQAS-Blood Bank External Quality Assessment Scheme recognized by NABH, Quality Council of India.

All blood groups are detected by advanced techniques which include cell grouping and serum grouping. The blood group can be cross-checked to avoid errors. The crossmatch or compatibility testing is one of the most important procedures carried out in our department. It is not enough if the donor and recipient belong to the same group. There are many other blood group antigens present on the red cell membrane that can give rise to a severe blood transfusion reaction. Therefore, all blood units are screened for atypical antibodies using the cell panel.

The other tests like Direct Coomb’s test (DCT), Indirect Coomb’s test (ICT) and maternal antibody screening are also done using gel technology.

Each unit of blood is screened by VITROS ECIQ CHEMILUMNI SCENCE for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV (I &II) viruses and Syphilis. To provide extra layer of safety, testing for Hepatitis B core Antigen is also done by ECIQ. As per NACO standards for Blood Transfusion services, all blood units are tested for Malarial Parasite using validated and sensitive antigen test.