NBTS officers to attend Argentine blood bank training

Three medical personnel from the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) will be heading to Argentina on August 23 to partake in capacity building exercises focused on quality management and control in the area of blood banking.
The training for the blood bank staff forms part of the second stage of a three-year agreement between the Governments of Guyana and Argentina, and which falls within the framework of the South-South Cooperation Agreement between the two South American nations.
The third phase will entail a visit by the Argentine team to Guyana in December of this year, followed by the continuation of training for the three NBTS medical personnel in 2017.
Acting Director of the NBTS, Dr Pedro Lewis, along with Quality Manager Davina Singh and Donor Organiser, Tonza Bamfield, will be

heading to Argentina on August 23.
Argentine Ambassador Luis Martino said the overall aim of the programme is to improve the blood safety levels in Guyana by building and strengthening human capacity, knowledge and technology.
Ambassador Martino said if all goes well with the three-year programme, they are ready and willing to broaden the scope of the South-South Cooperation in health beyond blood transfusion to other areas, such as medicine.
Martino said that upon the completion of the first phase, the experts shared with him that they detected many strengths at the NBTS.
According to him, the upcoming phase will now allow the participants to have a first-hand view of the procedures and standards at the Garahang Hospital. This will, in his view, help in the development of a plan for ongoing capacity building in all the regions with a blood banking presence.
Meanwhile, Acting Director of the NBTS, Dr Pedro Lewis, explained that the NBTS has already been able to improve its services due to the visits by the consultants during the first phase of the programme. Areas which have been improved include blood management and the collection of statistics.
Dr Lewis thanked Public Health Minister, Dr George Norton, as well as Ambassador Martino for the capacity building opportunities presented to him and his colleagues.
The other two staff members, Davina Singh and Tonzam Bamfield, also expressed gratitude for the opportunity and both stressed the importance of the work that they do at the NBTS.
They spoke of the importance of the capacity building exercises and assured that they will grasp all of the knowledge and experience that they can in Argentina so that they can share such with their colleagues in the other regions.
In addition to the NBTS in the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) compound, Guyana also has a blood banking presence at the Suddie Public Hospital, the West Demerara Regional Hospital, New Amsterdam Regional Hospital and the Linden Hospital Complex.
Dr George Norton stressed that the Public Health Ministry is working assiduously to improve health care services.