Blood Bank calls for witnesses to uncover crooks

ZAMBIANS should come forward and point at people that are selling blood in hospitals so that they are prosecuted rather than cower after whistleblowing, Zambia National Blood Transfusion Service (ZNBTS) Medical Director Joseph Mulenga has said.

Dr Mulenga in an interview said that it was frustrating that people were failing to pin point the individuals that were selling blood.

He said the selling of human blood was a criminal case because it meant people were dealing in human tissue.

“If you can help with pin pointing the person that sold the blood then I’m ready to take it up and I’m ready to take up the legal costs and be a witness in court,’’ he said.

Dr Mulenga said the problem he had in the last 20 years was that people froze and refused to give details of who the real culprits were.

He said that the other problem was that the demand in these institutions was too high and these include UTH, Kitwe Central Hospital and Ndola Central Hospital.

Dr Mulenga said the culprits were not buying the blood but they were getting a bypass so that they could beat the system since these institutions have too much demand. He said that the country had over 200 hospitals but that the others did not have this challenge as compared to the three.

Dr Mulenga also indicated that Zambians needed to donate blood more to avert this problem which was on the increase.

He said that the crisis was partially brought about because people were not donating blood and were shunning the exercise hence the problem.

Dr Mulenga said that they would mobilise resources to acquire more blood which would make it easy for people to acquire blood easily.