New South Wales Consolidated Acts

HUMAN TISSUE ACT 1983 - SECT 37A

37A Recovery of costs incurred by the State in connection with the supply of blood and blood products to approved health providers

(1) In this section:
"approved health provider" means:

(a) a private hospital or day procedure centre licensed under the Private Hospitals and Day Procedure Centres Act 1988 , or

(b) a private health facility licensed under the Private Health Facilities Act 2007 , or

(c) an accredited pathology laboratory under the Health Insurance Act 1973 of the Commonwealth (other than any such laboratory that is under the control of a public health organisation within the meaning of the Health Services Act 1997 ), or

(d) any health provider of a class prescribed by the regulations.

"blood product" does not include a product that is declared by the regulations not to be a blood product for the purposes of this section.
"blood supplier" means:

(a) the Australian Red Cross Society, or

(b) any other person or body prescribed by the regulations.

(2) The object of this section is to encourage approved health providers that use blood or blood products supplied by blood suppliers:

(a) to make the best use of available resources of blood and blood products, and

(b) to adopt an appropriate level of financial and performance accountability in relation to the use of those resources,

by enabling the Director-General to recover the costs incurred by the State in connection with the supply of blood and blood products to those health providers.

(3) If an approved health provider is supplied with any blood or blood products by a blood supplier, the health provider is required to pay the Director-General the costs incurred by the State in connection with the supply of the blood or blood products.

(4) The arrangements for paying those costs and the manner in which they are assessed may be determined by the Director-General.

(5) Any amount that is payable under this section is recoverable by the Director-General as a debt due to the State.

(6) For the purposes of facilitating the assessment by the Director-General of the amounts payable by approved health providers under this section, a blood supplier is, in accordance with any written directions by the Director-General, required to provide the Director-General with information relating to the blood and blood products supplied by the blood supplier for use in New South Wales.

(7) For the purposes of this section, the costs incurred by the State in connection with the supply of blood or blood products to an approved health provider includes the costs incurred by the State in collecting, transporting, processing or distributing any such blood or blood products.

(8) This section does not allow an approved health provider to charge a patient for the supply of any blood or blood product to that patient.

(9) However, nothing in this Act prevents an approved health provider that supplies blood or blood products to another approved health provider from recovering from the other health provider any amount that the health provider has paid under this section in relation to that supply.