Key highlights, lowlights and opportunities posed by the Covid-19 pandemic

Although the ongoing enduring effects of the Covid-19 pandemic continued to cause disruptions to businesses and overwhelm the health delivery system, the SANBS operations remained resilient and teams came together, united in responding to the fight against the pandemic and in our purpose, ‘trusted to save lives’.

Highlights

Safety of staff, donors and patients

  • Infection Prevention and Control measures were successfully implemented to ensure stakeholders, including staff, donor and patient safety in meeting Covid-19 regulations.
  • Social distancing was maintained by moving donor beds 2-metres apart and staff and donor screening processes were introduced, thus providing comfort to donors and staff with safety concerns.
  • SANBS staff and on-site stakeholders were registered on the National Department of Health vaccine database, enabling access to vaccinations.
  • To ensure continuity of operations, shift specific teams were created so as to limit only one team being impacted should the need arise to quarantine.
Teamwork and Collaboration
  • The SANBS culture of collaboration proved beneficial in responding to Covid-19, engaging the hearts (inspiring) and minds (influencing) of our people prioritising their safety and well-being by introducing flexible work practices, while maintaining business continuity and listening to their views through our Covid-19 response hotline.
  • Staff rallied together to meet the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Amidst the challenges of donor facing staff being directly impacted by the pandemic with some staff contracting the virus and having to isolate, the SANBS was able to continue with collections to meet blood demand
  • Increased collaboration between cross functional teams ensured that all aspects in the value chain were fully considered in decision making while working remotely.
  • Remote working and rapid redeployment of employees to fulfil critical positions when staff were affected by the virus ensured business continuity through Covid-19 peaks.
Research and innovation

Given the strong research capacity built up over the last decade, SANBS played a significant role in many Covid-19 related projects and research collaborations. These included:

  • Securing 3 new grants in support of Covid-19 research
  • Initiating a clinical trial for the use of convalescent plasma in treating Covid-19 patients in South Africa and collaborating globally through the International Society for Blood Transfusion (ISBT)
    • Lynx virtual research application was developed to support the PROTECT COVID-19 clinical trial
  • Performing sero-prevalence studies on donors to determine the proportion of donors who were exposed to the SARS CoV2 virus, resulting in the development of antibodies and extrapolating these findings to the general population. This research contributed significantly to the public health data in South Africa, and was used by, among others, the Covid-19 Ministerial Advisory Committee and Modeling Consortium
  • Collaborating and publishing research articles in peer review journals:
    • A number of our staff contributed to several international Covid-19 working parties, co-authoring multiple publications on this topic
    • Most notably, two staff members co-authored a scientific manuscript with collaborators from NICD which was cited more than 150 times, including by such renowned researchers as Dr Anthony Fauci, who heads up the US fight against Covid-19
Business Continuity

The importance of agile business continuity plans was heightened to mitigate disruption of operations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Effective business continuity ensured:

  • Staff were provided with the necessary resources to work remotely.
  • System stability was maintained.
  • Sustained availability of:
    • Safe blood and blood products
    • Critical consumables
    • Critical staff required in the frontline.
Rapid adoption and implementation of digital capability

In our quest to adapt rapidly to the environment created by the virus, we had to move swiftly to ensure that we did not falter on our purpose of “trusted to save lives”. This involved swift actions to equip staff with laptops and data at considerable financial expense, however providing significant capability that now enables almost half of our work force to work remotely. Notable achievements are:

  • Redeployment of the tele-recruiters, rapid expansion of the mobile network and provision of resources that enabled remote working, all of which will continue to be used post the pandemic
  • Deployment of virtual audits to ensure continued quality assurance of SANBS products and processes
  • Deployment of routers in blood banks to enable remote training (and auditing)
  • Use of LogBox to perform self-screening and reporting on results
  • Use of channels such as WhatsApp and Telegram to engage with all staff using single communication platforms
  • Extensive focus on continued staff development and switch to online training
  • Online meeting capability introduced for Board, Executive and cross functional teams, employees and external stakeholders
Media
  • Increased use of social media and other platforms to create awareness for the need to donate blood
Board involvement
  • Considered the adequacy of management actions regarding support provided to our employees working on various SANBS’ premises and offsite, including health, safety, wellbeing and mental health support
  • Explored digital options to enhance operational efficiencies
  • Implemented technology to continue effective meetings of the Board and board committees

Lowlights

Decrease in donors

First time donors reduced from 15% to 7 %, however we still managed to collect sufficient blood to meet the demand, which declined slightly. This was due to:

  • Displacement of other patients by those who had contracted the coronavirus
  • Reduction in trauma related to alcohol ban
  • Cancellation/postponement of elective and semi-urgent hospital care, both due to unavailability of beds, as well as fears of contracting the virus within healthcare facilities
Limited access to donors

Lockdown restrictions limited access to donors using traditional approaches, necessitating rapid, agile reassessment of collection models.

BECS delays

There were delays in turnaround times from the implementation partner which were attributed to remote work arrangements, however the team is collaboratively working on a recovery plan. Considering that the implementation of a new BECS has advanced completely during remote working conditions and the fact that we are just a few weeks behind is in fact a highlight – demonstrating the adaptability and agility with which we now manage the organisation.

Decrease in demand and revenue
  • Access to hospital beds for surgical and other procedures was severely curtailed by the number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients, resulting in lower issues of blood products and revenue
  • Blood collections and processing also reduced significantly during the earlier lockdowns and continued to be below budget for the rest of the year
  • Many public hospitals had to reallocate their funds available for blood and related services to efforts aimed at fighting the pandemic
  • Many private patients faced economic hardship and were unable to settle their outstanding balances
Opportunities created through our challenges and lowlights

Exploring innovative solutions to increase collections and blood supply, through:

  • Smart Fridges
  • Drones
  • Mobile donor centres
  • Alternative donor collection points
  • Increased stakeholder engagements ensuring partnerships that understand and support SANBS during times of crises
  • Conversion of training to online offerings