Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, I am sure you will be pleased to know that this is National Blood Donor Week, which provides the opportunity for all Australians to celebrate and recognise those who donate blood and to acknowledge the professionals who have helped Australia build one of the safest and most well-managed blood supply systems in the world. A single blood donation is a most generous gift—given free of any remuneration and given free of any expectations of thanks or gratitude. One single blood donation can save the lives of up to three people—accident victims, people with burns or cancer and, commonly, mothers who have just delivered or, in fact, their babies. We in Australia are very fortunate that more than 500,000 individual Australians donated blood in the last year. I would like to formally record the sincere thanks of the Australian government for the generosity of each and every one of those 500,000 donors.

But I do ask the Senate to think about the incredible logistics associated with the provision of blood products to patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and to understand the very real responsibility that donors are placing upon all the other players in the sector to use their donation wisely. In this National Blood Donor Week, I commend and recognise the Australian Red Cross Blood Service for the enormous amount of work they do in ensuring the safety and timeliness of delivery of our blood supply and for the whole range of services that ARCBS have supplied for us as a country over many years.

Around 20,000 blood donations are required each week to ensure that there is enough blood for people who need it. Fresh blood lasts in storage only up to 42 days, and platelets—one of the most important blood components—last only five days. A successful and sustainable future demands exemplary stewardship from all players in careful management of both supply and demand issues.

From the supply side, there are a number of elements we must be mindful of. We need to ensure that people understand the scarcity of the product we are dealing with. Each and every donation is a precious commodity, and it should be treated as such. Hospitals need to treat blood with care. Blood is not something to be discarded casually because it was left out of the fridge too long. Doctors well know that it should not be given as therapy without clear evidence of its benefits.

We also need to think seriously about how best to attract and then retain new donors. One in three Australians will need blood or blood products in their lifetime but only around 3½ per cent of the eligible population donates blood regularly. This will not be sustainable as our population grows and gets older.

We must avoid unnecessary wastage. Wastage of this precious gift is a shocking and unacceptable failure in our stewardship of the product. I call on everyone from the manufacturer to the hospital porter, the blood bank scientist, the ward nurse and the prescribing doctors to understand that each and every unit of red blood cells, platelets or plasma has come at a cost—not a cost to the system from the donor but a cost to ensure that it is safe, of good quality and provided at the right time.

We also have to recognise that a sustainable future means ensuring ongoing improvement to the processes used for collection, testing, manufacturing and distribution to maximise outcomes from government funding and the generosity of donors. We must also have reliable inventory reporting at the hospital level, with stocking levels considered and agreed to on the basis of good quality information to minimise the risk of a failure of supply.

Our responsibilities do not stop there. We also have to look at the issue from the demand side and perspective. We need to better understand where we use blood products. We need to know what proportion of the product is used to treat which diseases. Without knowing this, our capacity to predict demand will remain poor. Importantly, our capacity to predict demand is also hindered by the significant variation in use in Australia across jurisdictions, across specialties and within specialties in hospitals that cannot be explained by clinical evidence. To assist in managing demand, we must ensure all use is appropriate and we must work collaboratively to reduce the overall volume of transfusions that are required. This is being pursued internationally through an approach known as ‘patient blood management’.

All states and territories in Australia have implemented a range of activities to increase the appropriateness of use. We need to work collaboratively with the clinical community and across governments to better understand the overall benefit and risk equation for patients from receiving a blood transfusion. Everyone needs to work together to make sure that all patients are managed in a more holistic manner to reduce the likelihood of them needing a transfusion. For example, treatment of iron deficiency anaemia with iron therapy rather than transfusions could reduce the need for a significant proportion of red cell transfusions. An audit in one state found that 25 per cent of transfusion episodes in this category—with the majority being for stable patients, unfortunately—could have been avoided with appropriate iron therapy in the community.

Further, to manage our demand we need to improve our understanding of the nature of transfusion related adverse events that do, unfortunately, occur in Australian hospitals. In saying that, I acknowledge that Australia has one of the safest blood supplies in the world. While not significantly different from international experiences, the available data suggests that there could be improvements in the appropriateness of use of the product. We also have to provide improved information to patients on the risks and benefits of a blood transfusion just like with any other clinical intervention so that they can make an informed choice. Each and every one of us has a real and pressing obligation to fulfil the responsibilities of appropriate stewardship in accountability for the financial, clinical and other resources associated with managing blood donations.

Next year marks 80 years of blood transfusion and collection services in Australia. Next year has been nominated as the Year of the Blood Donor, representing a unique opportunity to lead the world in ensuring that we use our precious donations with world-class expertise based on the best science and the utmost respect. In this National Blood Donor Week I once again commend those 500,000 people who generously, selflessly and for the good of the community broadly make a donation on a regular basis. Senator Moore, I know that you are in the chair but I commend you for having as one of the badges that you do wear from time to time the 100-donation badge. You would be one of the few people in this place who would proudly wear that badge, and I say ‘thank you’ because there are many people who have been assisted from your donation of blood over many years.

Australia is already leading the way in how we manage and run our blood supply within the Asia-Pacific region, and hosting World Blood Donor Day will provide the opportunity to showcase this. But let us put down a challenge. Let us challenge all of us with a stake in this important issue to work collaboratively and to demonstrate genuinely respectful judicious world-class stewardship and use of this precious gift of human blood.