Academy
Strengthening hospital transfusion committees in Cameroon
Lyonga Kharim
Blood Track, Yaounde, Cameroon
Beukou Fonkou Hygin Steve
Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS), Cameroon
Hospital Transfusion Committees (HTCs) play a pivotal role in ensuring the safety and quality of blood transfusion practices within healthcare facilities. The importance of robust blood transfusion services as underscored by the World Health Organization (WHO) emphasises the need for well-organised and effectively managed systems to ensure the availability of safe and adequate blood supplies. The International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) further advocates for the implementation of quality management systems and adherence to international standards. In the African context, the African Blood Transfusion Society (AfBTS) highlights the unique challenges faced by resource-limited settings and stresses the necessity of context-specific strategies to enhance blood safety. Cameroon's healthcare system, like many others in sub-Saharan Africa, faces significant challenges in maintaining a consistent and safe blood supply.
These challenges include inadequate infrastructure, lack of a clear mandate, guidelines and protocols, limited resources, and a shortage of trained personnel among others. Thus, establishing effective functioning of HTCs is essential for addressing these challenges. In order to address this cankerworm, Health Education and Research Organization (HERO) Cameroon, organized a 2-day workshop as an ISBT academy event converging 54 participants from 6 of the 10 regions of Cameroon. Participants came from 15 hospitals, 3 institutions and representatives of the National Blood Transfusion Services (NBTS) involving 6 of the 10 regions of the country. The participants included healthcare students (medicine, medical laboratory), nurses (transfusion practitioners and anaesthetist), general practitioners, internists, medical laboratory scientist, members of a voluntary blood donors’ organizations, and a legal expert. The Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS) hosted the event at her Resource Centre for Excellence in Yaoundé. We were graced to have at local level, the NBTS chaperoning HERO.
Welcome address by the representative of the Director of Health Services for CBC, Mr. Fuh Anold (left), opening keynote speech by the chair, Mbanya Dora (middle) and Master of ceremony, Lyonga Kharim-Charles (right)
Live session with Judith Chapman, Former Executive Director of ISBT
Each day tackled a module, from 7:30 am to 5 pm, with a chairperson per module. The days consisted of morning-afternoon sessions, and afternoon-evening sessions. In the morning sessions, 3 presentations preceded a brief team building activity. The afternoon-evening sessions kick-started with group work, followed by presenting the group work exercises, open discussions and a case presentation from Baptist Hospital Mutengene’s (BHM) experience on their contextualized HTC in order to ingrain practical insights in participants for ulterior application of the knowledge so obtained. Pre and post-test surveys and feedback forms were administered on both days via Google forms. The training ended with a call to action post-training engagement form filled by the participants indicating how they aimed to apply and use the knowledge gained. This serves a follow-up tool.
Group work activity
Facilitators (from left to right): Ngegni Hortense, Epie Lewis, Tayou Claude and Fonkou Steve
Team building activity: Aimed to enhance trust and collaboration among team members (members of the hospital transfusion committee)
“Understanding hospital transfusion committees in 4D”: this theme guided the first day chaired by the current and pioneer general manager of the NBTS; Mbanya Dora. We aimed at equipping and empowering participants on the relevance and role of HTC. The day dawned with a welcome word from the representative of the Director of the CBCHS, Mr. Fuh Anold, followed by a keynote address from Pr. Mbanya. Dora, current General Manager of the NBTS, Cameroon. Both messages highlighted the pertinence and timeliness of the subject matter. Furthermore, the participants were exhorted to disseminate the knowledge gained back in their various workstations. Specific goals on this day sought to understand the current status of blood transfusion services in Cameroon, gain knowledge on the importance of a functioning HTC and acquire skills in setting up and running an efficient HTC. 5 groups were formed. The group work involved a practical case scenario on how to get HTCs in place, cognizant of the various challenges to overcome with stakeholders, in various settings in Cameroon. Then followed group interactions and discussions. The day ended with a case presentation on “Overcoming challenges in functioning of HTC in BHM to properly hem in the set goals.
Family picture: Participants and chair of day 1, Mbanya Dora (General Manager of NBTS)
Family picture: Participants with certificate and chair of day 2, Tayou Claude (Medical and technical Director of NBTS)
The second day, chaired by Tayou Claude, Medical and Technical Director of Cameroon’s NBTS. This second day focused on equipping and empowering participants on strategies to run, monitor and evaluate the functioning of the HTC. After his keynote speech, Tayou and participants together followed up the online sessions from prolific ISBT speakers on the matter, like Judith Chapman (UK), Arwa Al-Riyami (Oman) and Masiku Phiri (Zambia). After decent interactions with our virtual panelists on leadership, implementation of hemovigilance programs, and the Zambian experience respectively, the chair then engaged the participants on establishing and monitoring KPIs of the blood transfusion system. All these geared at attaining the day’s specific objectives: To understand the role of leadership in a HTC, designing and implementing a hemovigilance program (hospital), and to gain insights on designing KPIs and challenges faced by HTC. Fonkou Steve’s presentation on “Doing more with less: The impact of a contextualized HTC- case of Baptist Hospital Mutengene” focused on bringing all these seemingly abstract concepts to a home experienced reality, as a boost for participants. At the end of all of these, representatives from the 16 hospitals and organizations were given a “post-engagement form”, highlighting the activities they would carry out within at least 3 months time from now. This would be accompanied by a supervision visit to palpate the impact of this initiative similar to that of last year. The day was closed with a remarks from the chair person, who saluted the efforts of the organizing team, and pledged anew the Cameroon’s NBTS’ unflinching support to initiatives geared at establishing and strengthening hospital transfusion services in Cameroon, and particularly the labour of love of Dr. Fonkou and team.
