109 blood banks booked for violations

The various violations under which the blood banks were booked include overpricing, improper storage conditions, poor maintenance of equipment, absence of sterility testing, non-maintenance of prescribed storage temperature, improper storage conditions, under staffing and improper logging.

This has raised serious doubt over the standard of blood being given out to people in the state, especially in Hyderabad as more than 60 per cent of the violating units are from Hyderabad. The authorities said that as of Wednesday the final report as per violations booked for each blood bank was yet to be prepared and would take a day or two more.

The violating units will be issued notices and seven working days time will be given to them to respond and take rectification measures.

Even after seven days if the blood banks fail to rectify their mistakes their licence will be cancelled and the unit will be shut down.

For the raids each drug inspector was tasked with the inspection of a maximum of four blood banks, with about 4 to 5 hours per blood bank and each drug inspector was sent to an area other than his original jurisdiction for supervision of the staff. One assistant director supervised the work of three drug inspectors and one deputy director supervised the work of four ADs.