Director of the Department of Laboratories and Blood Banks in the General Administration of Gaza hospitals Amid Mushtaha said on Sunday that the Gaza hospitals suffer from a shortage of laboratory testing materials up to 30% a percentage that is likely to increase.
Mushtaha explained that the large hospitals in particular suffer from a lack of sodium blood tests which are conducted only for urgent cases in the vital sections such as intensive care burns surgeries and nurseries.
He added that the crisis affected all laboratories and blood banks in hospitals causing a lack in virus tests which are necessary for hepatitis cardiac catheterization and kidney patients noting that these important tests “are very expensive and exhaust the patient’s family financially because of the difficult economic situation”.
The shortage afflicted other types of testing materials which led to reducing the blood clotting tests which became limited to the emergency cases and the blood gas tests according to Mushtaha.
Mushtaha affirmed that the shortage began to appear in the materials used for the C.B.C. tests the chemical tests conducted to examine bacterial farms and some types of antibiotics and the fecal occult blood tests for the internal bleeding patients. He also confirmed the depletion of a large number of testing materials especially those used for dyeing blood films such as ethanol and methanol.
In another context he warned of the impact of the long hours of power outage on 9 blood banks distributed in the hospitals of the Ministry of Health and on the quality of the preserved blood and its derivatives such as plasma and cold deposit which need a certain cooling degree as well as the quality of platelets.
He pointed out that the fluctuating electric current running through the laboratory testing devices affects the quality and efficiency of work.
