A prospective study was carried out for a period of 6 months (September 1987 to 28 February 1988) to evaluate the possible misuse of blood transfusion service in the department of surgery, Amiri Teaching Hospital, Kuwait. There was a monthly wastage of 45 ±13 units of blood. Five hundred and eleven units of blood were crossmatched but never transfused. The time taken by the blood bank technicians in crossmatching blood which was never used amounted to 54.4% of the normal working hours. An annual loss of about US$25000.00 was calculated to have occurred.
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