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Melania Mahiya

Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
Government should take over the administration of the National Blood Services Zimbabwe (NBSZ) to ensure the cost of blood becomes affordable for ordinary people, legislators have said.

Members of the National Assembly said the reason why the cost of blood was out of reach for many people was that NBSZ was running the institution on commercial lines and its motivation was to make money rather than saving lives.

The legislators said this on Tuesday while contributing to a motion moved by Gokwe Gumunyu MP Cde Melania Mahiya (Zanu-PF) calling the House to take note of the First Report of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care on its fact finding mission to Zambia on cancer management and blood services.

It was noted that blood in Zambia was offered for free, yet NBSZ sold blood at between $100 and $180 per pint, despite getting it for free from donors. Cde Mahiya said when they visited Zambia, the Government had taken control of that country’s blood services organisation and was funding it, which resulted in easy access of the product by the generality of Zambians.

“The delegation was informed that the production cost of one pint of blood in Zambia is $89, but Zambians get blood services for free. The delegation also had the opportunity to tour the blood bank in Zambia,” she said.

“From the above experiences and lessons, the committee recommends that the Government of Zimbabwe must fully fund and own the National Blood Services of Zimbabwe to enable citizens easy access to blood services by end of 2018.”

Gutu South MP Dr Paul Chimedza (zanu-pf) said the reason why the cost of blood was out of reach for many Zimbabweans was that its administration was in private hands. He said while NBSZ argued that it incurred costs in processing the blood, that reasoning came to nought when ordinary people could not afford it.

“It is important for us as Parliamentarians and Government to make sure that blood is available to every citizen of this country. It is the responsibility of Government to do that. We have to take that responsibility seriously,” he said.

“The reason that we think this is not happening is that the blood transfusion services are in private hands. It might, therefore, not be proper for Government to mobilise resources from Treasury and give to a private entity to effect the services that we want.”

Binga North MP Mr Prince Sibanda (MDC-T) said he was informed that NBSZ wanted the recent reduction of blood price rescinded because Government was not subsiding it.