•Crisis which has hit hospitals in Nyanza and Coast blamed on lack of basic items like blood bags
•Health CS Sicily Kariuki last week dispatched a team to assess the blood bank crisis in counties
The country is facing a serious crisis of blood shortage and the government needs to act quickly to save lives, medics have said.
The Kenya Obstetrical and Gynecological Society has called on Kenyans to come out in large numbers and donate blood.
The country needs at least half a million units of blood per year.
“Our members are fighting to save lives in maternities across the country with poor outcomes occasioned by lack of blood,” the society's president Benjamin Odongo said in a statement on Friday.
“Family members who are willing to donate to save their kin are forced to stand by helplessly as even blood bags are not available to collect the blood.”
Their call comes after Health CS Sicily Kariuki last week dispatched a team to assess the blood bank crisis in counties.
Kariuki said the actual reason for the crisis would only be determined after the fact-finding mission.
The crisis, which has hit hospitals in Nyanza and Coast regions, has been blamed partly on lack of basic items like blood bags.
This means that even if the county facilities sought to carry out blood donation drives, they have no equipment to store the blood.
The medics say the situation may worsen in the coming days unless the ministry, Parliament and Treasury step in urgently.
Despite blood being donated freely, there are a lot costs in the activities around blood donation such as safe collection, mandatory testing of the blood for HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and Syphillis.
Most of these activities have been funded by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar).
Pepfar is the cornerstone of US global health assistance, which supports HIV/Aids treatment, testing and counselling for millions of people worldwide.
But since Kenya is no longer considered a lower-income country, donors like Pepfar are slowly withdrawing their support.
In the last 15 years, Pepfar has been providing the bulk of funding to support Kenya’s blood collection and testing for HIV, HBV, HCV and syphilis to the tune of approximately Sh7.25 billion for the country’s blood safety programme.
Kenya has received about Sh700 billion from Pepfar since it was founded 15 years ago, and the country remains the programme's largest beneficiary.
But even with the US government’s help, there have been massive deficits in the service.
Sixty per cent of blood collected in the country is used for maternity services.
Post-partum hemorrhage remains the leading cause of maternal mortality in Africa.