NHLS security breach ‘crisis’ being attended to, says Health
The Department of Health said on Wednesday that the turnaround time for processing test results at the National Health Laboratory Services remains slow.
The delays come after a security breach at the National Health Laboratory Service.
NHLS spokesperson Mzi Gcukumana says they are working to solve the issue as speedily as possible.
“The NHLS has distributed a critical test list to all health facilities. This is done to limit the volume of test requests, allowing laboratories to cope with the workload. However, this does not imply that routine tests will not be performed.
"We have come up with innovative ways of making TB and HIV viral load historical test results available to clinicians. More tests, prioritising those on the critical test list, will be made available. In addition, we are in the process of developing an electronic registration system for registering new samples and providing test results electronically.”
Health Department spokesperson Foster Mohale says the cyber attack has disabled an automated function for sending laboratory results.
Mohale says everything is now being done manually.
"Unlike before, where you could send the samples to laboratories electronically, people need to move from one facility to the laboratory to collect the sample and take them to labs and wait for the results to come back and get the paper results and send them back to interpret the results.
"It is a crisis which is currently being attended to with the urgency it deserves."
He says it has affected the turn-around time.
"If it was taking ten minutes for the doctor to diagnose the patient, now it takes up to 20 minutes because of the current system we are using."
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