BY LYNTON AARON FILIA
HUMAN resource is one of the major challenges the national referral hospital’s lab is facing.
And this problem has been persisting for years, it is revealed.
This has forced Taiwanese deployed doctors to be employed in the lab to fill in the manpower gap.
Recently, Taiwan Health Centre in Honiara through its partnership with Solomon Islands government and Taiwan’s Government, have sent two specialists from Taiwan to join the lab team.
NRH Laboratory Technologist, Mrs Brenda Laurii said the lab’s current staff of 27 is still not enough to meet the demands.
She said to keep the lab functioning each department needs to have good number of working staff but unfortunately the Ministry of Health and Medical Service has freezed recruitments.
Laurii said lab plays an important role for diagnose activities inside NRH and doctors also rely on them although it is regarded as second or third grade among workers.
“Currently we should improve our machines such as PCR and DNA testing to avoid spending lots of money for sending samples overseas.
Taiwanese Lab Technician, Mrs Ann Lin completed her two-week volunteer work as lab technician to work in the NRH’s dengue lab.
She said although they did well during the course of two weeks, they did not keep up with regular tests due to insufficient manpower.
Lin adds to the outcry for more workers, saying that more technical personnel are needed for regular testing and maintenance of the equipment.
She recommends that the lab’s problem be solved immediately.
Lin graduated from Kaohsiung medical university in medical technology.
She worked with Kaohsiung medical university hospital for seventeen years, and expressed her excitement to have a chance in joining the plan for dengue lab.
