IBTS Annual Report 2007.pdf - Irish Blood Transfusion Service

More documents

Recommendations

Info

8 “Blood transfusion services continue to evolve – driven by increasing needs from patients requiring more advanced therapies for cancers, heart diseases and other conditions.” Annual Report 2007
9 National Medical Director’s Report Blood transfusion services continue to evolve – driven by increasing needs from patients requiring more advanced therapies for cancers, heart diseases and other conditions, by the aging of the population and the increasing availability of comprehensive health care. No substitutes for transfusions have emerged to date, and none is likely to appear for many years. Concerns about safety will persist as climate change and demographic change alter the patterns of infectious diseases in the world. Concerns about supply will remain, and supply will continue to be met by the extraordinary ordinary people who give of their time in the most meaningful expression of altruism to give blood. Concerns about efficacy, how to make sure that blood and blood components have a consistent and optimised biological activity in the patients who receive them, are beginning to define the directions of the next wave of developments. Early Developments In its infancy in the early twentieth century, blood transfusion was performed as a sort of minor operation: the donor, usually a large male, was attached directly to the recipient via a large rubber tube and blood flowed directly from one vein to the other. It wasn’t lightly done, and often it was performed as a last ditch attempt to save the life of a bleeding or anaemic patient. Blood loss after childbirth was one of the commonest reasons for doing it. Everything: needles, tubing, scalpels for opening the veins, glassware, were sterilised and reused. The donor was often reused too, and in some cities small lists of volunteers were maintained who could be called upon to come in to the hospitals at short notice to be hooked up to a seriously ill or dying patient. The physicians or surgeons would phone the organiser who would then muster, and often drive around and collect, the donor, and take him – in the early panels it always was a him – to the hospital. It’s not clear how the donor eventually got home – but they must have been well cared for, since many of these services ran reasonably successfully for years. There was precious little donor assessment – if you were well nourished, in good health, free of TB and syphilis, and willing to be got out of your bed at any time of the night to have a very large needle inserted in your arm for half an hour or more, that was enough. And blood group O. It saved having to fuss very much about cross-matching or compatibility testing or blood grouping if the donors were all group O. In time these services evolved into the large blood services that exist today, aided at first by the simple technologies of cold storage and citrate salts to prevent the blood clotting so it could be stored for days, and eventually weeks. The second world war accelerated the development of transfusion services and the science needed to conduct it on a large scale. This evolution continued after the war, and a transfusion service today is a very different thing from ones of the 1940s or 1950s. In the 1970s manufacture and supply of medicines made from donor plasma were the main drivers of change in blood transfusion services – mainly meeting the need for clotting factors and immunoglobulins, often in the presence of a desire for national self-sufficiency that was seen by some as a goal of immense importance. Infectious Irish Blood Transfusion Service
Page 1 and 2: Annual Report 2007
Page 3 and 4: Contents Our Values Excellence in s
Page 5 and 6: 3 Chairperson’s Message The prima
Page 7 and 8: 5 Chief Executive’s Report I have
Page 9: 7 across all sections of the organi
Page 13 and 14: 11 throughout the year and will be
Page 15 and 16: 13 Optimising use of the donor’s
Page 17 and 18: 15 NATIONAL 2007 VS 2006 CUMULATIVE
Page 19 and 20: 17 Hospital Services Hospital Servi
Page 21 and 22: 19 Operating in an environment of c
Page 23 and 24: 21 In addition to the above referen
Page 25 and 26: 23 RNA, HCV RNA and HBV DNA in huma
Page 27 and 28: 25 In pursuit of excellence Quality
Page 29 and 30: 27 Supporting best practice in pati
Page 31 and 32: 29 The Eye bank also imports and is
Page 33 and 34: 31 Irish Unrelated Bone Marrow Regi
Page 35 and 36: 33 Implementing change and deliveri
Page 37 and 38: 35 Pension Costs and to disclose th
Page 39 and 40: 37 Corporate Governance The Board i
Page 41 and 42: 39 Statement of Board Members’ Re
Page 44: National Blood Centre James’s Str

IBTS Annual Report 2007.pdf - Irish Blood Transfusion Service

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?