Donors sue blood service after test failed to detect anaemia

The Irish Blood Transfusion Service is facing legal action from donors who were cleared to give blood despite being anaemic.

A number of donors have indicated their intention to sue after faulty testing equipment failed to detect their low haemoglobin levels, the service has confirmed.

Chief executive Andy Kelly said the IBTS has paid for 1,700 donors who were tested with the faulty equipment to attend their GP where they were experiencing symptoms of anaemia. Four of these have required blood transfusions.

Compensation
The IBTS plans to lodge a compensation claim against the German manufacturer of the equipment next week, but this is likely to be resisted.

The problems with the new equipment, which was used between July 2014 and November 2015, have put blood supplies under severe strain and damaged relations with regular donors.

New blood bank board minutes show the service estimated the cost of dealing with the issue at €500,000 last December. Mr Kelly said the figure had risen since then, but he declined to state the amount.

The extra costs have been incurred on advertising to encourage more blood donations, additional donor clinics at the weekend, paying for the GP visits and full blood counts for affected donors.

Even with these measures, blood supplies have remained critical since news of the faulty equipment emerged. At times, particularly in quiet periods such as bank holiday weekends, there have been just two days’ supply of blood, instead of the normal minimum of five to seven days.

Donation deferral
Although attendances at donor clinics have stayed high, 15 per cent of donations have had to be deferred because the donor has a low blood count. A year ago, this deferral rate was 3 per cent.

When account is taken of other factors that rule out donations, such as travel to areas where malaria is prevalent, the overall deferral rate is 25 per cent.

The service said the device, which uses a white light to measure redness of blood in the finger, was faulty because it missed a subset of women who were anaemic.

The equipment continues to be used in Austria but authorities in Bavaria have recently stopped using it, according to Mr Kelly.

The IBTS has gone back to assessing the suitabiltiy of potential donors using the traditional finger prick test. However, this wrongly fails up to 30 per cent of people whose blood is actually suitable for donation.

In the 1990s, the service was embroiled in a number of scandals over the provision of infected blood products to patients.