Hospital breakdown leaves around 200 waiting for blood test results

Monday 10 January 2022

Around 200 islanders have had to wait over three weeks for blood test results after a machine at the hospital lab broke down and attempts to fix it were unsuccessful, Express has learned.

An analyser machine in the Infection Sciences Laboratory at the General Hospital suffered a broken part on 17 December - but the matter was only resolved last Thursday after two unsuccessful attempts.

Engineers came from the UK in the week of 20 December but were unable to repair it. They then returned on 27 December but were again unable to repair the machine. 

Health staff considered whether to send samples to the UK, but it emerged that it would have taken longer than waiting for a repair to get the results.

Pictured: A spokesperson for HCS said all samples should be analysed by tomorrow morning at the latest. 

An additional part was as ordered and arrived in the island on Thursday 6 January.The breakdown caused a delay in the analysis of blood samples with some islanders having had to wait over three weeks for what they described as “routine” tests. 

The spokesperson for Health and Community Services confirmed that as of Monday 3 January, 184 blood samples were awaiting to be processed on the analyser. 

They told Express that the backlog should be cleared by Tuesday morning "at the very latest".

The Health Department made enquiries with a UK laboratory for the samples to be analysed there as part of its contingency plans, however, this didn’t prove feasible.

The spokesperson explained: “Due to covid pressures in the UK on labs there, it would have taken longer for the samples to be sent to the UK, analysed and sent back than it would have taken for the part to be repaired, which is now happening.”

They added: “HCS apologises to patients for any inconvenience caused by any delay in results.”