Wrong medical results? Blame it on inept staff and stock out

Increased cases of false medical test results have been linked to chronic lack of material stock, faulty equipment and poorly trained workers.

Evidence presented at a scientific conference on laboratory services and safety last week indicated the situation was undermining the standard of healthcare across the country and becoming a threat to patients’ lives.

The problem is so serious that 35 per cent of results for malaria tests done at Lodwar Country Referral Hospital in Turkana County turned out to be false.

Data from Busia County, for example, show that the main referral laboratories consistently lack crucial chemistry and blood reagents of up to 81 per cent and 63 per cent respectively.

Ill-trained staff

Presenting her findings, Frida Sirima, a manager in the county’s referral laboratory, said only equipment for diseases such as HIV and TB, which are covered by donors, are available.

In her study carried out between January and March this year, Ms Sirima said only about half of the items were being monitored for expiration.

She also told the four-day conference in Kisumu that while the labs had well-designed commodity inventory systems, many workers lacked training.

The conference organised by the Association of Kenya Medical Laboratory Scientific Officers (AKMLSO) discussed lab service delivery, safety and bio-security.

A similar tale was told by another laboratory manager in Turkana, Simon Leting, quoting his study carried out between January and June 2015. The study showed more than a third, or 35 per cent, of malaria tests done at the Lodwar Country Referral Hospital in Turkana County turned out to be false.

Mr Leting said 100 per cent of the malaria tests during the period did not conform to the required standards. He blamed the low performance on poor documentation and ill-trained workers.

The unsatisfactory results, he said, were also due to poor equipment maintenance and lack of Standard Operating Procedures crucial for such facilities.

Similar findings were reported by Betty Olonyi on the serious challenges facing mother-to-child HIV transmission programmes in Busia County.

Ms Olonyi, who is with the National Aids and STIs Control Programme, told of poor understanding of procedures especially among new workers. The conference was responding to a recent report by the ministries of Health and Agriculture that indicated lax and incompetent lab workers as a threat to patient and national security.

The work by the Danish and Kenya governments surveyed 86 laboratories in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa counties, finding 35 incidents where specimens had been lost mysteriously.

NO INVENTORY

Seven of the facilities owned up to losing dangerous materials with potential for use in bio-terrorism.

Another 10 labs said they were not sure how much they may have lost because they didn’t keep inventories as required by good laboratory practices.

This was the first survey ever to establish how safely laboratories in Kenya are storing specimens in the face of increased intentional bio-terror threats.

The study, ‘A Biosecurity Survey in Kenya, November 2014 to February 2015’ published in the Journal Health Security in August, indicts Kenya as a disaster waiting to happen.

— www.rocketscience.co.ke