Centre illegally collected, sold blood in Delhi and UP; 2 doctors booked: Police

The police have booked two doctors of a blood centre for allegedly transporting and selling blood to other blood banks in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh illegally for the past two years, said the officials on Saturday

The police have booked two doctors of a blood centre for allegedly transporting and selling blood to other blood banks in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh illegally for the past two years, said the officials on Saturday.

The illegal blood centre was operational from a private hospital (space taken on rent) in Sector 56, said the police. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

A team of drugs control officers raided a blood centre, which was operational from a private hospital (space taken on rent) in Sector 56, on Friday and found out various irregularities there, following which the centre was sealed and a case was registered against its executive director and medical officer, said the officials.

The police said that no arrests have been made so far.

According to the police, they received a complaint from a senior drugs control officer, who alleged that an non-governmental organisation (NGO) had been running a blood bank centre illegally and selling blood to other states, following which a raid was conducted there. The licence of the pathologist at the blood centre was used to take the office licence. It is mandatory that a licensee should work at a centre concerned, however, the person in question works at another diagnostics laboratory in Sushant Lok and withdraws salary from the illegal blood centre.

A senior official of the department of food and drug administration (FDA) said that “there should be a full-time deployment of medical officials at blood centres, and blood must be collected from a donor in the presence of a medical official”. However, this was not the case here, said the police.

Haryana health minister Anil Vij on Saturday said that blood donated in camps organised by Gurugram’s Lions Blood Centre was sold at remote areas of Uttar Pradesh such as Jhansi, Kanpur, Varanasi and several cities in Punjab. “It was found during the raid that the blood centre has been involved in selling blood for money, which is anyway illegal. Besides this, illegal transactions worth lakhs of rupees have also been found at this centre, which the police will investigate thoroughly. The official teams have recovered documents for the same. The executive director of the blood centre has been involved in illegal activities, and we will take strict action against it and the medical officer at the earliest. The centre has also been sealed.”

“It has been found out during preliminary investigation that 6,015 blood units were collected at 176 outdoor blood donation camps organised by the centre without a permission from the health department in the past two years. Even the technical staff deployed at those camps lacked required qualifications,” Vij added.

The Haryana government has launched a campaign against drug abuse, illegal sellers of medical termination of pregnancy (MTP) kits, illegal shops in nursing homes, and blood centres involved in illegal activities and more raids will be conducted, said Vij.

Parvinder Malik, a senior drugs control officer, said that the headquarters gave a tip about the blood bank operating from a private hospital in Sector 56 to the department. “The NGO has been organising outdoor blood donation camps without informing the civil surgeon, and sold all the blood to other states and Delhi to make a quick buck,” Malik said, adding that the centre did not even maintain temperature while storing and transporting blood.

“Each donation camp has to give 25-30 % of blood units, out of the collection, to the government hospital which sends the staff for organising these free camps. The blood is then sent to districts having a scarcity, and the blood is then given to the poor... However, the centre did not follow the guidelines,” Malik said, adding that the private hospital had no role in the illegal activity.

A case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, has been registered against the suspects at the Sector 56 police station on Friday, said the officials.

Aman Yadav, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), said that the NGO had rented the space in the basement of the hospital for ₹1,400 per month, and organised blood donation camps there without permission for the authorities concerned. “They used to illegally collect blood after organising free donation camps and sell bulk blood to other cities. The centre had been illegally transferring 6,658 units of blood worth ₹1.5 crore for the past three years. The estimated cost per unit blood is between ₹1,700 and ₹2,000... The suspects have carried out an excessive number of blood donation camps in the past two years. The blood centre was also involved in charging a big amount for the blood, and collected excess blood from voluntary donation camps, without even having an appropriate number of trained blood bank staff, including the medical officer in question,” Yadav said.

The police said that a few screening forms of blood donors taken randomly at spot were not even signed by the pathologist, but by unauthorised doctors.

A senior official of W Pratiksha Hospital said, “We had an agreement with the NGO that they would provide blood to our patients at a reasonable price. They started operating in 2018, and we were not aware that they were operating illegally. “