Friday, June 29, 2007 Blood bank board wants another meet
SOME members of the board of trustees of the Regional Blood Coordinating Council (RBCC) want another conference with the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas on the deal to downgrade RBCC to a blood collecting unit (BCU).
Helmut Haas and Ramon Ceniza, former Provincial Board member and husband of the RBCC head, asked the anti-graft office for a meeting with Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Ethylien Nieto and Regional Director Susana Madarieta two days before the council is set to lose its license as a blood bank.
The RBCC board and DOH met last June 16 before Acting Deputy Ombudsman Virginia Santiago to prevent the DOH from closing the blood center.
What was cleared, though, was the issue on bonds charged by private hospitals on the use of blood. RBCC and DOH agreed to look into the matter.
Not convinced
But the RBCC’s downgrading into a BCU still looms.
“Unfortunately, the scheme presented by Undersecretary Nieto is the final death blow to the RBCC blood bank which is to be downgraded into a BCU,” Ceniza and Haas wrote Santiago.
Nieto was in Cebu last week to meet with the RBCC board of trustees to iron out differences and to prevent its closure.
But while DOH 7 Assistant Regional Director Lakshmi Legaspi said everything is okay, Haas and Ceniza are not convinced.
The two members of the RBCC board outlined Nieto’s plan during the June 22 meeting in Cebu.
Since RBCC is already a BCU, it will no longer screen blood. This will result to a P180,000 monthly operating funds for the council.
Budget
“Instead of saving P180,000 monthly on the part of the government, DOH through the Regional Blood Center is to take over the operations and personnel of RBCC who will be hired, thus involving the corresponding budget from the government,” the letter to the anti-graft office read.
As a BCU, RBCC will no longer release blood to patients and can no longer issue membership cards, which will “gravely affect its recognized efficiency in blood collection.”
Ceniza and Haas noted the urgency of the matter and called for another conference between the RBCC board and DOH officials. (JGA)
