For 250 thousand purchase of blood irradiation equipment for EUR will shorten its delivery in Vilnius, he says National Blood Center (NKC) manager Daumantas Gutauskas.
"The process itself is shortened to six and a half minutes, and from the order we can provide the blood component in the city of Vilnius in about an hour, in other Lithuanian cities, as I mentioned, it may take longer due to traffic conditions," D. Gutauskas told reporters in Vilnius on Wednesday.
"The period of an hour is really, even in the event of an emergency, a sufficient time to save the patient. The problem that someone could die due to the delay in the delivery of irradiated blood or have some negative health consequences, those times are already in the past," the head of the NKC asserted.
Until now, NKC used to transport blood components to Kaunas clinics for irradiation. According to D. Gutauskas, before this process took much longer.
"We receive the order, we type the blood, then we transport the blood component to Kaunas, we irradiate there for about half an hour, then we transport the blood to the hospital," said the head of the NKC.
"At least three or four hours added up like nothing," he said.
According to D. Gutauskas, contracts for the irradiation service were concluded with the institutions that offered the lowest price. Although they have such equipment Santara clinics, she did not participate in the competition.
"Year after year, the situation was that only Kaunas clinics participated and that was it, we had no other contracts. The one we had, the one we are transporting", the NKC manager told BNS.
Irradiation of one blood bag in Kaunas clinics used to cost 16 euros.
According to D. Gutauskas, the purchased device is currently the safest and most modern on the market.
"This particular device (BNS) does not work on the principle of gamma rays, but on the principle of X-rays. It means that it does not contain a dangerous substance inside, it is not dangerous for us to be around it", explained D. Gutauskas.
Devices using gamma rays contain radioactive materials, and they must be equipped with special rooms covered with lead. Meanwhile, in the machine purchased by NKC, all the hazardous processes take place internally, and the equipment itself is lead-coated.
Irradiated blood components are used for the treatment of newborns, oncological and other serious diseases.
Only blood components selected individually for the recipient are irradiated in order to minimize transfusion-related adverse reactions and eliminate rejection.
Authors: Greta Zulonaitė, Karolina Ambrazaitytė
