By Nathasha Nethmini
The General Secretary of the All Ceylon Nurses’ Association S. Mediwatta states that the patients, as well as the staff of the Colombo National Hospital, have been severely inconvenienced due to the PCR tests not being carried out properly at the hospital.
He pointed out that the PCR tests could not be carried out properly due to the fact that the laboratory personnel required for the PCR tests were not properly deployed and the required chemicals were not available for the machine tests.
However, the machine has the capacity to perform up to 200 PCR tests, which is said to be a serious setback as it the only facility that can quickly diagnose corona patients.
Half of these tests are currently being performed by the Colombo Medical Research Institute, as patients arriving at the outpatient department of the National Hospital and receiving inpatient treatment are required to undergo PCR tests before going home and undergoing surgery.
He pointed out that the delay in receiving the report could put the lives of hospital staff as well as other patients at risk as it would only be possible to know if a patient had been infected with the coronavirus after receiving these reports.
