CONCERNS OVER COVID-19 RESULTS WAITING PERIOD

MBABANE – There are concerns over COVID-19 results as some patients claim that they are forced to wait for over three weeks without receiving them.

The patients are aggrieved that no feedback is given to them by doctors or personnel from the COVID-19 laboratory. In an interview with some of the patients, they alleged that no one at the laboratory took the responsibility to notify them once there was a discrepancy with their samples. They claimed that they had to approach the laboratory to inquire about the results and were told that the samples were rejected and discarded due to information that did not correspond.

According to a patient, she questioned what happened to the specimen when the information did not correspond and the response by the laboratory employee was that if no one came to rectify the problem, they discarded it. She said she was told that the specimen was kept for a few days before being discarded.

Samples

“I was not content with the response, especially because patients are not notified after the discarding of their samples until they call to make a follow-up on their results,” she said. She said in her case, nobody had contacted her but she decided to approach the laboratory seeking answers by virtue of being a health personnel. Further, she said the hospital informed her to re-swab. She stated that following her re-swab, her results came out positive.

Meanwhile, she said she was worried about the inaccurate statistics which were communicated to the nation. “My daughter also faced the same predicament. She has not gone back for re-swabbing and insists the symptoms have gone away and she is fine.” The patient said she believed that there were those people who were tested because they showed COVID-19 symptoms and given medication while waiting for their results, and then they did not make a follow-up. These people, she said, were not recorded in the statistics given to the nation.

Clarity

One of the COVID-19 laboratory employees who was sought for clarity said usually when samples were rejected, they informed the doctor responsible for taking the swab.

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