By Dara Gantly. Symptoms such as a persistent cough, unexplained weight loss and coughing blood should always be heeded, particularly in current or former smokers, the Irish Thoracic Society has stated.
A vote of confidence in blood transfusions
June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A new survey reveals that the majority of the Irish population believe the safety of blood transfusions has improved over the past decade, reports Greg Baxter More than half of Irish people in a pan-European survey said they feel that blood transfusion is safer now than it was ten years ago, and less than 10 [...]
Email adverse reactions – IMB
November 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment
GPs have been advised by the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) to report electronically any suspected adverse reactions to the H1N1 (swine flu) influenza vaccines, as the postal system may well be disrupted by the pandemic. The Board stressed that as there was limited safety data available on the vaccines, additional pharmacovigilance activities were essential to [...]
IBTS issues tender for new security contract
October 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has issued a renewal tender for a dedicated security service for it headquarters in Dublin. The full-time manned guarding service at the National Blood Centre at St James’s Hospital will be tasked with maintaining a secure environment for IBTS staff, donors and visitors, as well as protecting the premises [...]
Explosion of sickle cell disease could mean early deaths
September 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Gary Culliton reports on the lack of a comprehensive service programme for a very vulnerable patient group We won’t have the tribunal now. We’ll have it in 15 or 20 years time,” according to Dr Corrina McMahon, who runs Crumlin’s Sickle-Cell Disease (SCD) Centre. “It would be a real shame were we to see preventable [...]
The cost of safe blood
September 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment
In the final part of a three-part investigation, Dara Gantly asks whether it is legitimate to apply standard health economic arguments to blood safety. Read part 1 and part 2 of this article. The Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health, Dr Tony Holohan, is understood to be in discussion with the Health Information [...]
Taxi blood samples age on trip to Cavan
September 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment
GPs in the Monaghan area report that they are experiencing a huge increase in the number of bloods saying ‘aged samples’, as bloods are taken by taxi to Cavan. The HSE has admitted that samples taken at a GP surgery ‘were not properly handled’ at some point in the transport chain. As a result a [...]
Defence options against vCJD
August 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment
In the second part of a major investigation, Dara Gantly examines the options available to detect and filter out variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease from blood donations. Read part 1 of this article, which was published last week The latest Annual Report (2007) from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) suggests an unambiguous stance on using [...]
DoH goes for ‘do nothing’ option on tests for vCJD
August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment
The IBTS has called on the Department of Health to re-establish an expert advisory group on vCJD to safeguard the blood supply, reports Dara Gantly The Department of Health believes that a number of ‘significant issues’ need to be addressed before it can consider funding a new test for variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD). An [...]
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