Thanks to a chance encounter, I have been the Foundation’s Chairman for a fullyear.
In the past one year, it is my real honor to work with all of my colleagues of the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation. We achieved a lot of things and set a number of goals for future. The pressure is greater and there are more difficulties to overcome. For the sustainable development of the blood donation services, we can only continue moving forward to reach the next summit.
This year, we cooperated with the Taiwan Society of Blood Transfusion to build a national hemovigilance program for monitoring blood transfusion reactions that will assist medical institution in reviewing and identifying adverse transfusion reactions in order to improve the overall safety of domestic blood transfusions. In the future, we shall put greater emphasis on transfusion reaction monitoring and encourage the government to incorporate this important health measure into hospital accreditation programs as a quality check for health care.
To reduce the risk of transfusion related acute lung injury, strategy of male-predominant plasma and leukocyte antibody screening for female apheresis platelet donors will be introduced. In addition, we are actively moving in development of genomic testing of red cell and platelet-specific antigens to assist patients who require multiple transfusion in acquiring matched blood and blood components. Moreover, transfusion-transmitted HBV and HCV infection have been covered in the scope of moral relief payment in addition to HIV infection.
In the future we will push ourselves to reach even bigger goals. The mission of blood donation service is not just to maintain a balance between blood donations and blood requirements, but also pay more attention to our services. We need to be dedicated to the research and development of blood technology and blood transfusions, strict blood quality control, the safe use of blood and continuing care for blood donors. These are the ideas that we are committed to in our jobs.
We are the only blood donation services in Taiwan. We are all extremely proud of the priceless love and generosity of the donors; in addition to showing our gratitude, we need to cherish every blood donor’s health and enthusiasm. We will transform the selfless dedication of blood donors into the force tocomplete our unfinished mission and develop our foundation into a leader in Asia. We aim not only to keep abreast with more advanced countries, but to promote the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation worldwide!
Ching-ChuanYeh