Maintenance costs of old ULT freezers very high: National Blood Bank

The maintenance costs of existing blood bank refrigerators at the National Blood Transfusion Service are very high, and they are more than 15 years old, National Blood Transfusion Services' Director Dr. Lakshman Edirisinghe yesterday said.

He told the Daily Mirror that the National Blood Transfusion Services has sufficient storage capacity to meet the demand.

We use blood refrigerators, plasma freezers and platelet agitators as the blood cold chain equipment used for the storage of blood components.

"We have sufficient ultra-low temperature (ULT) refrigeration at the service, and those facilities were used to store COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic period. However, the ULT freezers that store blood units at -20°C and -40°C are more than 15 years old. Certain freezers which are running for more than 20 years are still in good working condition. It is no use continuing service agreements for their maintenance. There are 109 blood banks in operation across the country, and it is very hard to continue with service agreements for such old freezer equipment," he said.

Therefore, the National Blood Transfusion Service has to bear a huge cost for the maintenance of the ULT freezers.

Due to the economic downturn, importing various items into the country has been banned, and it was heavily affected without being able to find spare parts for the ULT freezers.

Therefore, it is better to have a new freezer system, and it is a bit of a challenge for us. However, the relevant funds to continue with the service were provided by the Treasury. We are currently in the process of making a proposal requesting for a new freezer system for future needs. (Chaturanga Pradeep Samarawickrama)