Diagnostic Laboratory
GENERAL INFORMATION
QECH has several departments under the direction of the Hospital Director. The Laboratory Department is amongst these and has several sections with the Laboratory Manager as an overall in charge of all laboratory operations. The laboratory provides Teaching and Diagnostic Services to patients referred from district hospitals of the southern region of Malawi. Its main functions include:
- Diagnostic
- Preventive
- Monitoring
- Screening
- Clinical Chemistry
- Immunohematology
- Histopathology
- Microbiology
- Blood transfusion
- Phlebotomy
- Molecular diagnostics.
The QECH Laboratory focuses on satisfying the needs of its customers and has therefore established a quality management system that facilitates identification of opportunities for improvement. The Laboratory has a Quality Manual that specifies the quality policies and procedures applied and implemented by the Laboratory. It acts as the Laboratory’s approach to achieve accreditation requirements of the current version of the International Standard ISO 15189 titled’ Medical Laboratories Particular Requirements for Quality and Competency’.
The laboratory’s overall quality goal is to achieve the stated quality policy, and maintain the integrity of and continually improve on the quality management system. It is the culture of the laboratory to implement corrective and preventive action on non-conformities in order to continually meet the needs of its customers. QECH laboratory currently seeks to be accredited by SADCAS. The QECH laboratory is composed of the following laboratory Sections:
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Microbiology
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Blood transfusion
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Clinical Chemistry
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Molecular Diagnostics
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Immunohematology
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Histopathology
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OPD/Phlebotomy
Normal
- Monday to Friday 07:30 am - 4:30 pm
All Emergencies
- Monday to Sunday 24Hrs
Note
- The special service are emergency services that cater for urgent requests from clinicians.
- Due to staff shortages, only one technologist is on duty during special service
- Activities carried out during Special Service: provision of urgent Blood Transfusion and Haematology services and the processing of all urgent laboratory samples received outside normal working hours (Malaria microscopy, rape case investigation & CSF analysis)
- During Special Service, clinicians are reminded to request an urgent laboratory test, only when necessary and the result of such a test will have a significant beneficial effect on the management of the patient.
- During the normal business hours, all routine and urgent laboratory tests are carried out by the laboratory. To facilitate the processing of samples and to improve the turnaround time of results; users are urged to send all samples requesting for routine test, to the laboratory, preferably done before 14:00 hours for biochemistry, and not later than 15.30 hours for other sections, during normal hours.