Datuk Hamidon Ali

High Commissioner, Malaysian High Commission;

Mrs Minda C Cruz

Minister & Consul-General

Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines;

Dr Aviva Ron,

Director, Health Sector Development

World Health Organisation Regional Office for the Western Pacific;

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It gives me great pleasure to deliver the keynote address this morning at the opening ceremony of the Regional Quality Management Training Course in Blood Transfusion Services, and to officially open the new Apheresis Suite @ HSA.

A modern healthcare system needs access to a reliable supply of safe and effective blood and blood components. More than 100,000 units of blood and blood components are transfused in our hospitals every year, to patients undergoing surgery, patients experiencing bleeding emergencies, and patients with blood disorders. Without blood, it would not be possible for our surgeons to perform cardiac surgery or heart transplants, for our oncologists to treat cancer patients with the drugs they require.

Singaporeans enjoy access to a high quality state-of-the-art blood service, so much so that it is often taken for granted. What is quality in a blood service? It is providing a safe, effective, adequate and accessible blood supply that will meet the needs of patients at an affordable cost to the community. This sounds so simple that many are unaware of the myriad of components that comprise a quality system. Quality does not just happen; it must be developed and maintained. In Singapore, quality has always been a priority at the Centre for Transfusion Medicine, or CTM of the Health Sciences Authority. Over the years, CTM has undergone continuous improvement and rigorous professional management to ensure that every single component provided for transfusion is as safe and as effective as possible.

Quality involves every aspect of blood banking activities. The quality system in CTM embraces all aspects of the organisation, including personnel, processes, documentation, equipment, facilities, and service. It involves routine yet critical activities such as checking that all the materials used meet quality and safety specifications, checking that machines used are maintained and functioning properly, and making sure that facilities are clean and meet safety regulations. It means ensuring that all the processes involved in collecting, processing, testing, handling and storing the blood and blood components are controlled, consistent and efficient. It also means that there is proper documentation of all activities, and that records are kept of the fate of each donation from collection right up to transfusion. The quality system we see in our Bloodbank@HSA translates into the hundreds of activities that are carried out consistently day after day, on each and every donation without error or deviation.

The quality in the blood bank begins from the moment the blood donor steps into the blood bank and continues right up to the moment when the donated blood enters the veins of the patient in the hospital. It has been proven that the safest blood comes from blood donors who are regular, voluntary and non-remunerated, and who come forward to donate blood to the community because they want to save lives. Blood banks that aim to provide safe and high quality blood and components, must therefore ensure that they recruit and retain these donors.

Every blood donor must be given the highest quality donor care that is available. Quality donor care means that the blood donor must be able to receive good standards of medical and nursing care to protect their health and safety during the donation. More than that, quality donor care also means treating the blood donor as an important customer. Just as customers who are poorly served at a shop are likely never to return, so blood banks which treat their donors with poor and unprofessional service are unlikely to be able to retain them as regular donors. Ensuring quality customer service in blood banks also includes making sure that donors understand the importance of donating safe blood. Donors should feel that they are valued for their community service. In turn, donors will know they are making an important contribution to the community to provide safe blood and will take the responsibility upon themselves to ensure that their blood is safe.

A recent variation of blood donation has been the apheresis donation. Apheresis involves the removal of whole blood from the donor, extraction of specific components such as platelets or plasma, and then returning the remaining components such as red cells back to the donor. Modern technology allows the use of cell separator machines to do this procedure safely and efficiently, and products collected by apheresis are fast becoming the product of choice for patients. Unlike regular whole blood donation where it takes only 20 minutes to complete the donation process, apheresis donation can range from 45 minutes to 2 hours. Apheresis allows for more frequent donations. It is a testimony to the dedication and commitment of our apheresis donors that many of them make regular apheresis donations up to 6 times a year. I applaud the spirit and generosity of this group of blood donors who go the extra mile to give the gift of life.

It is therefore with pleasure that I am here to officiate at the opening of the new Apheresis Suite @ HSA. The HSA has recently embarked on upgrading its blood donation facilities to make sure that our donors, who give much of their time and effort, not to mention their blood, will be able to do so in a comfortable and relaxed environment. The new Apheresis Suite will particularly cater to providing a more conducive environment for our Apheresis donors who sacrifice more time to make their donation. The Bloodbank@HSA will continue to ensure the highest standards of quality service to our blood donors, and to encourage more Singaporeans to donate blood regularly.

Quality in blood service does not end when the blood leaves the blood bank but extends beyond the blood bank into the hospital. Quality must be maintained until the blood product has safely entered the body of the recipient.

The key to achieving quality is, of course, the people in the organisation. There is little point in investing millions of dollars in high technology equipment without properly trained and motivated staff to operate these machines well. Quality is a mindset. It requires the consciousness in the blood bank that everything you do impacts on the safety and effectiveness of the final product that is given to patients. This is a paradigm that must be inculcated into every single member of the blood bank, from the director right down to cleaner. We must make every effort to select and motivate each one of our staff, and to train them and provide them with the knowledge they need to do their best.

WHO has embarked on a programme of Quality Management Training. This is part of its Quality Management Project and Global Blood Safety Initiative. This will enable senior blood bank and health officers to be more aware of the need for quality management and to learn the fundamentals of how to put quality management programmes in place in their respective countries. In addition, this programme will help us all to build a regional blood safety network, and to cooperate with each other in establishing safe and effective blood transfusion services in the Region.

I would like to thank Dr Aviva Ron, Director, Health Sector Development , WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, and WHO staff for working with our CTM in HSA in developing this project. I would also like to highlight that this training course is made possible through the sponsorship of WHO, HSA and our Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its Singapore Cooperation Programme. The Singapore Cooperation Programme, or SCP, was established in 1992 and brings together the different technical assistance programmes organised by Singapore for developing countries. Since its inception, we have sponsored, either on our own or in partnership with our 29 development partners, training courses and study visits for over 18,000 officials from 145 countries in the Asia-Pacific, Africa, Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean. Last year alone, more than 4400 participants participated in training courses organised under the SCP. Through this new partnership with WHO, we hope to continue expanding the SCP to better meet the training needs of developing countries.

In conclusion, it is often said that Quality is not an end, but a journey. We are all at different points on our quality journey, and it is important that we help each other along the way so that we can each continue to progress by sharing our knowledge and experiences. This meeting is, I hope, but a first of many more occasions for our countries to cooperate in the area of transfusion medicine and blood safety, and I wish all the participants and facilitators a most enjoyable and fruitful journey over the next three weeks. And of course, just as no journey can be totally complete without good food and company, I do hope that all of our overseas guests will take time to sample the food and sights of our country.

It now gives me great pleasure to declare this WHO Regional Quality Management Training Course in Blood Transfusion Services open.