According to data published by the Lara State College of Bioanalysts, between 80 and 90% of the entity’s public clinical laboratories are inoperative, including those of the outpatient network, Social Security Administration and Ipasme (Ministry of Education healthcare administration).
By: Yanitza Martínez // Correspondent lapatilla.com
Elena Torres, President of the Lara State College of Bioanalysts, provided information regarding this important service that is supposed to serve the inhabitants of Barquisimeto, Cabudare, Carora, Quíbor, El Tocuyo and Siquisique, through the Antonio María Pineda Central Hospital, Dr. Agustín Zubillaga Pediatric Hospital and the Luis Gómez López Hospital, but currently only the laboratory of the Central Hospital provides minimal and deficient service.
Ms. Torres comments that during her tenure at the headquarters of the clinical laboratory of the Central Hospital of Barquisimeto, between routine and emergency services, more than 200 tests were processed per day. This throughput has been changing in the last four years due to the lack of provision of supplies, reagents and the desertion of qualified personnel due to low salaries.
She mentions that the almost extinct laboratory of the Barquisimetano hospital had a bacteriology area, which had a team of workers of more than 20 people, a number that with the passing of time has been reduced to only five.
Provision of reagents
The head of the College of Bioanalysts of Lara State recalled that years ago the public laboratories made an agreement with private companies, who through commodatum provided the equipment, and the State was in charge of paying for the reagents, an agreement now in the past, and these companies withdrew their equipment because in recent years the regime stopped paying for the consumables and reagents.
Patients affected
The Antonio María Pineda Hospital of the Central University in Barquisimeto is a type 4 healthcare center and was prepared to care for patients from Yaracuy, Trujillo and Portuguesa. Despite this, it does not have a fully operational laboratory service, so most patients, hospitalized or not, must go to private laboratories to perform their blood tests.
Currently this clinical laboratory only processes about 12 samples a day, including glycemic index, urea, cholesterol, triglycerides, VDRL, urine, feces and simple blood chemistry.
But not all patients have access to it, so most have to go to the private laboratories, where simple tests such as blood sugar, feces and urine start at $3 and up, but a special test can cost more than $100.
It used to be that the emergency ward also had a 24-hour laboratory service with five bioanalysts of them on duty, but now it is also inoperative and all emergencies that arrive at the care center must go to the private laboratories in the area.
Social Security without service
The lack of air conditioning in the clinical laboratory of the Pastor Oropeza Social Security Hospital in Barquisimeto has stopped this service from being available to all patients who come to the hospital, also one of the most important in Lara State.
Elena Torres commented that it has not been working since 2018 and that its staff have gone through some difficulties, among many of them, they are forced to work at night in a venue that does not meet the minimum conditions to stay overnight.
Ms.Torres added that the staff does not refuse to work, but working conditions are very far from ideal or even basic. This has resulted in the discount of the bonuses corresponding to holidays and weekends.
Rural municipalities bear the brunt
The drama created by the conditions of public clinical laboratories is more acute in rural municipalities of this jurisdiction, such is the case of the cities of Quíbor and El Tocuyo, where there is no service in operation.
Despite this, the staff has continued working in compliance with the assigned schedules and taking samples from the inpatients confined in each healthcare center.
In the case of the city of Carora, the Pastor Oropeza Hospital’s laboratory has not provided full service since 2017 and its staff have had to face a series of difficulties to stay afloat.
This laboratory, commented the bioanalyst from the hospital, Zoraida Montilla, despite having all the equipment, does not have the necessary reagents, which is why only rapid tests such as hepatitis B, VDRL and HIV are processed with great difficulty, which in most of the cases are requested by the Blood Bank.
The infrastructure of this laboratory has completely deteriorated and due to the lack of lighting, a space of about three by three meters was haphazardly set up where the staff processes the few samples that arrive.
Ms. Montilla added that although they have some high-tech equipment, they cannot be used because the space must necessarily have air conditioning, and the one they currently have in such a small place is not enough to keep the entire area at the required temperature.
As for basic services, the laboratory of the main hospital of Carora does not have a piped drinking water supply, since the mains pipe through which they had been supplied for more than a year was removed.
To survive, the staff collects the water that condenses from the only air conditioner in the place and with this water they clean the spaces, wash the work implements and use it in the bathrooms.
The patients, the most affected
The pocket of the inpatients in the public healthcare centers of Lara suffers when they have to perform any laboratory test and the fact is that the prices vary a lot according to the type of tests.
Everything that has to do with hormone tests, thyroid profile, tumor markers, among others, are tests that can cost more than $200, depending on the type of laboratory.
The blow is harder for cancer patients, kidney patients and pregnant women, who must periodically undergo high-cost tests that are not guaranteed in the public sector of Lara State.