An overview of blood transfusion services in Palestine

Abstract

Blood transfusion is a vital component of the health-care system, especially considering the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli conflict that increases the need to maintain sufficient availability of safe blood for medical emergencies. We assessed the elements of blood transfusion services (BTS) against the guidelines of the World Health Organization guidelines to identify the achievements and gaps of the Palestinian BTS. Before the provision of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, BTS was provided by one blood bank and lacked any legislative or regulatory framework. Currently, BTS is overseen by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH). There are 32 functional blood banks in the West Bank. Fourteen functional blood banks are overseen by MoH including the Central Blood Bank, which takes the role of a reference blood bank and 13 hospital-based blood banks. BTS in Palestine still lacks some of the major components required for a good national effective and safe BTS such as legislative and regulatory frameworks that are integrated within the national health system, defined standards and national guidelines on the clinical use of blood components, a national comprehensive quality assurance program for BTS, and a hemovigilance system to capture data on adverse events. In addition, there are no national blood donor programs or educational programs for staff in place.

Keywords

• blood banks
• blood transfusion services
• palestine