It’s emerged that a lack of capacity in the Pathology Department at Letterkenny University Hospital will lead to some blood samples not being tested within the same working day, which in some cases could render them unsuitable for analysis.
A letter sent to GPs and other users of the service says this will be the case as of this coming Monday, March 4th.
The document. which has been seen by Highland Radio, says that as a consequence of insufficient capacity in the Blood Science Department, they can no longer process all samples within the working day of 8am to 8pm.
The letter says from Monday, some samples received will not be processed on the day of receipt, and while the option of referring them to a private provider has been explored, this has not been approved by senior management.
The letter stresses this is not a staffing issue, nor is it an analyser cost concern as the equipment is provided at no additional charge under the current management service contract. This, the document states, is purely an issue of additional floor space required to facilitate additional analysers to cope with the daily workload.
Options to increase capacity have been presented to management and HSE Estates, and the issue was discussed at a recent meeting, but the letter says as of now, none of the options has progressed.
