First Capital Bank Zimbabwe (FCB), has donated US$30,000 for a low cost renewable energy solution pilot project to complement the blood bank’s cold chain power system.
Speaking during the handover ceremony, Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care (MoHCC), Dr John Mangwiro said the National Blood Service Zimbabwe solar powered cold chain initiative was in line with government’s vision of attaining an Upper Middle Income economy by 2030 through provision of quality healthcare and innovative health service delivery.
“With this solar idea that’s coming, I know they are now going to have even portable small fridges that use solar. Once we have these solar carrying small fridges, it will be much easier for us to use drones to distribute blood and this blood and other medicines that need to be kept in fridges will be transported together. This is an initiative which we need to say to NBSZ, well done,” said Dr Mangwiro.
“As a nation, we are moving towards 2030 which our President has proclaimed that we should go there. These are some of the improvements that we need to look forward to. The small fridges I mentioned will not only transport blood but will also open avenues for other players in the medical field. Medicines will be transported that way. It’s very important that we understand the importance of this initiative. First Capital Bank, well done, we would like you to encourage other corporates,” added Mangwiro.
First Capital Bank Managing Director (MD), Ciaran McSharry said they believe that their contribution will help ease the operational hurdles that the institution has been facing.
“The nature of blood transfusions and storage of blood means that power supply should always be present to preserve the blood stocks that are always on demand nationally,” he said.
The US$30,000 is part the US$180,000 required by be National Blood Service of Zimbabwe (NBSZ) to complete the solar project which when fully implemented, will ease the power outages induced woes the blood bank has been experiencing of late due to persistent and recurring power cuts.
The NBSZ cold chain equipment includes ordinary blood bank refrigerators, walk in cold rooms and freezer rooms and laboratory equipment.
Lucy Marowa, the NBSZ Chief Executive Officer said the solar project would reduce the energy bill by a huge margin.
“The NBSZ utilizes a lot of electricity for its cold chain equipment which includes ordinary blood bank fridges which are also the same size as the household fridges. We also have huge walk in cold rooms and freezer rooms and apart from that, we also have a laboratory equipment that utilizes electricity and the equipment has to be running 24/7 to make sure that we have enough blood in stock.
“Blood being a perishable product, has got a very narrow temperature range within which it has to be kept so that we keep it alive and effective when it is actually transfused. What has been happening is that the electricity bill itself has been quite significant and because it is so huge, the NBSZ finds it difficult at times to keep up with those large electricity bills,” said Marowa.
She added the prevailing power cuts were affecting the blood bank as it is not on the same special emergency grid as Parirenyatwa Hospital. As a result the blood bank has to fall back on their generators where they are currently using a 50 kva Generator which is the main backup power they have and another one, a 5 kva to support the system. The 50 kva generator is however huge when it comes to the consumption of diesel.
“We could even use around 200 liters of diesel in a single day, which is quite heavy when you got incessant power cuts going on. The reason why we decided to go for a low cost solar power project is to try first and foremost to cut out on the electricity bill itself by putting in place a system which primarily runs on solar power and it will be backed up by a 100 KV battery per system which is a repository power to be used during the night as well as on those times when we have power cuts,” she said.
