Mumbai | September 8, 2026
The Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration has ordered a three-day suspension of the licence of the blood bank at Kandivali’s Bharat Ratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital, also known as Shatabdi Hospital, after an inspection found staffing shortages and incomplete records, Loksatta reported on Tuesday.
The action follows an FDA inspection campaign covering blood banks in hospitals across the state. The regulator had recently taken action against the blood banks at Mumbai’s KEM Hospital and the Indian Railways’ Jagjivanram Hospital before inspecting the facility at Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali.
According to the report, the FDA found that the blood bank had only three technicians against the eight required for its operation. It also found one full-time officer and one DNB student working at the facility, while five officers were expected. In addition, kits and registers were found to be incomplete.
The licence suspension has been ordered for three days in October. The report did not specify the exact dates of the suspension or state whether the order has been stayed pending the hospital administration’s appeal.
The hospital administration has appealed to the FDA regarding the deficiencies identified during the inspection. A senior hospital official told Loksatta that the administration had submitted detailed information about the hospital’s available facilities and blood-bank equipment to the regulator.
The official also said that the facility currently provides whole blood to patients. However, patients increasingly require packed red blood cells, or PRBCs, which are separated blood components used in several medical treatments. The hospital is in the process of moving the blood bank to a public-private partnership model, according to the report.
Hospital officials said the proposed PPP arrangement is intended to provide blood-bank services across all three shifts and maintain the required blood stock once the process is completed. No implementation date for the arrangement was provided.
Blood banks are subject to regulatory requirements covering blood collection, testing, component separation, storage, temperature control, quality assurance, trained staffing, equipment, record maintenance and biomedical-waste management. The FDA conducts inspections to assess whether these standards are being followed at blood centres and storage centres.
The availability of safe blood and blood components is critical during emergencies, surgeries, childbirth-related bleeding and the treatment of conditions including thalassaemia, haemophilia and cancer. The FDA’s continuing inspections have brought operational capacity and compliance at hospital blood banks under scrutiny across Mumbai. The next formal milestones are the October suspension period, the hospital’s appeal and the proposed process to operate the Shatabdi blood bank under a PPP arrangement.
