Kiryandongo general hospital laboratory has been accredited by the South African National Accreditation System-SANAS. This sets a national record for Kiryandongo being the first internationally accredited public hospital laboratory.
Other public hospitals accredited are Kayunga hospital and Nsambya private not for profit-PNFP hospital. The hospital laboratory was accredited in accordance with the recognized international standards ISO 15189:2012. The scope of the facility as per the accreditation is Medical Testing Laboratory Haematology, Flow Cytometry, Serology and Tuberculosis.
The accreditation demonstrates technical competence in the defined scope as well as the operation of a quality management system. The standards look at the human resource which requires a minimum of six laboratory staff for a general hospital of which Kiryandongo has fourteen, infrastructure and availability of reagents.
Patrick Olaka the quality assurance manager Kiryandongo general hospital laboratory says to ensure competence of the laboratory staff, new recruits are subjected to mandatory in-house training. “The training program helps us monitor each and every personnel who works in our laboratory so as to ensure they are competent. The training program runs every year; after you have been trained doesn’t mean you are competent, a laboratory must design a competence test tool, it is a criterion that we have and it ensures that after you have gone through all formal trainings, you are again assessed for competence to prove that you are really competent to run a patient sample.” Olaka said.
The accreditation of the facility has attracted more opportunities and implementing partners such as the Germany emergency doctors to support and work with the hospital so as to ensure efficient service delivery. It has also earned the facility confidence from both local and international patients.
Olaka says, the greatest question is about sustainability of the accreditation given the limited budget provisions for the general hospital laboratory but the staff remains positive and committed to sustaining the status up to the next accreditation after a period of four years.
Kiryandongo general hospital is unique from others and being a hospital of first intervention along the Kampala-Gulu highway, it handles a number of emergencies which has made the district authorities agitate for a Referral hospital status.