Company gives portable blood bank to hospital

National

THE Port Moresby General Hospital has been given a portable blood bank by Brian Bell Chemicals, a subsidiary of the Brian Bell Group of Companies.
Hospital chief executive Dr Umesh Gupta said it was a life-saving equipment which would cut down the time nurses and doctors spend walking from the labour ward to the blood bank to get blood.
“The freezer will store about 40 bags of blood when needed during labour and after labour,” he said.
The freezer can maintain the temperature of blood at 2 to 4 degrees.
Brian Bell Chemicals divisional manager David Slape said the donation was in partnership with a leading manufacturer in Europe which provided blood bank freezers, deep freezers and blood processing equipment.
Slape said the company’s partnership with the hospital went back a long way through the late Sir Brian Bell.
The group has been supplying chemicals to the hospital for the past four years.