Leader of Government Business in the Senate Clarence Rambharat said the PCR machines at the JBF Cancer Ward at the Wendy Fitzwilliam Paediatric Hospital are now functioning.
Rambharat was responding to a question from Opposition Senator Wade Mark on Tuesday. Mark said he was informed that the two PCR machines at the ward, which serves children with cancer and their parents/adults, had malfunctioned.
Mark said owing to this inefficiency, the samples took a long time to be processed, and patients were asked to return three days later to get the results of their tests. He said this resulted in extra expense and loss of working days for the parents, while the children suffered from having to make the journey more than once.
Mark also said the children were often put in non-oncology wards to await their tests results.
“They are moved to a paediatric ward that is not oncology-oriented, posing life-threatening conditions to these children, as the nurses and doctors in these medical and surgical wards may not be equipped and experienced to deal with the ports by which the children receive medicine, causing them to become infected and cause harm to the children.”
He called on government to fix the machines so that the children could be treated immediately.
Rambharat said the PCR machines on the ward malfunctioned on December 28 and January 4. He said on both occasions, established protocols were used to ensure the tests were done within 24 hours and the results obtained.
“There are procedures and protocols for those instances when critical equipment becomes non-functional, and in the public sector, that protocol gives the opportunity to have testing done in private facilities, and that has been a longstanding arrangement. In nether of these cases were the care and treatments of the patients significantly compromised, and the procedures affected were carried out within two days.”
He said as of January 12, the PCR machine was repaired and became fully functional and both the patients at the operating theatre and the admissions to the ward were receiving PCR test results and follow-up treatment in a timely manner.
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