Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — The Ministry of Health's monitoring teams are investigating some hospitals which are trading in blood and selling it to patients needing transfusion at excessive rates, Al-Watan newspaper reported on Saturday. The ministry has begun a study in preparation for fixing the prices for blood needed for transfusion to defeat the greed of private hospitals. Some of these hospitals were allegedly exploiting the need of rare blood types and selling a pint of blood for as much as SR1,800. The ministry is also considering forming a committee to unify work at blood banks. The manager of the laboratories and blood banks department at Jeddah Health Directorate, Dr. Saeed Al-Amoudi, said a "regional blood bank" will be launched in Jeddah to serve patients who need blood transfusions. He admitted that government hospitals face a huge deficit of the rare blood types, while other types are readily available. To overcome this problem, the ministry has established a data bank of donors with rare blood types. He added that most of these donors are company and hospital employees, in addition to regular donors. The shortage of rare blood types often follows the month of Ramadan because donors cannot donate blood during the day as it will break their fasting and most of them are busy with other duties during the night, Al-Amoudi said. He added that there are nine regional blood banks in the Kingdom, and four central blood banks were established in various governorates and provinces. Al-Amoudi pointed out that the ministry has prepared specially built vehicles as mobile blood banks. These mobile blood banks targets donors at public places such as sports clubs, shopping malls and government and private work places where a large number of people gather. He denied that there was shortage of personnel for accepting blood donations at government hospitals.
