CIT fined €2k over lax disposal of blood packets

BLOOD packets used by medical students at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) were brought home by a staff member and burned in a barrel, only to be dragged by a dog on to the front lawn of a house — sparking an investigation that resulted in the institute being convicted and fined €2,000 yesterday.

The 11 packets originally came from the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) and were used at CIT for work with medical students. A CIT employee decided to take home the empty packets which had blood residues in them and burn them in a 45-gallon barrel outside his house in north Cork.

A dog pulled a few of the partly burnt packets on to the front lawn of the house next door to the employee.