Blood is available round the clock
By Tan Hui Leng, TODAY | Posted: 14 July 2007 0718 hrs
The centre which supplies blood to hospitals is open 24-by-7.
That is the assurance from the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) amid certain misconceptions that have surfaced in the wake of Madam Swee Lay Kuan's bleeding to death at Raffles Hospital where she was delivering twins.
One issue that has surfaced is that the national blood bank is closed on Monday and public holidays .
But in an email to TODAY, the HSA said its Centre for Transfusion Medicine is opened to supply blood to hospitals on a 24-hour basis every day.
However, the blood donation division — which is BloodBank@HSA — is closed on certain days.
Thus, under no circumstance would patients' rights to blood transfusions be compromised.
"All requests for emergency blood supply are given top priority ," said Dr Diana Teo, director of the Centre for Transfusion Medicine.
Meanwhile, the incident at Raffles Hospital has led to other patient complaints, even as the private hospital has said that Mdm Swee died due to an acute blood condition and not because the hospital had run out of blood supply, as her husband initially alleged.
A complainant, Mr Loh Boon Kwang, who called the MediaCorp News Hotline, said the incident reminded him of his wife's difficult delivery at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) in 2004. She too had low-lying placenta.
"Before she was sent to the operating theatre, the doctor had ordered blood for my wife as she was bleeding, but the nurse came back and told the doctor in my presence that theblood could not be issued ," the 37-year-old computer repairman told TODAY.
"Two units of blood were prepared and sent to the operating theatre on standby," said a hospital spokesperson. But as Mrs Loh did not suffer any significant blood loss, a blood transfusion was not needed and all blood units were returned to the blood bank.