Page 157 - MALAYSIA HEALTH SECTOR RESPONSE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC: PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELD

Force , MOH Malaysia had mobilised additional MLTs and Microbiology
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Science Officers from Peninsular Malaysia to assist in coping and meeting
with the higher testing demands.

7.4 Strengthening Laboratory Preparedness for COVID-19 Tests in
Sarawak

At the beginning of July 2020, there were officially 5 MOH hospital
laboratories running COVID-19 tests in the state of Sarawak, with the
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assistance of 1 Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) laboratory . In total
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these laboratories were able to run up to 2,100 tests/day .
However, from 29th July 2020 until December 2020, the UNIMAS laboratory
no longer ran COVID-19 tests, reducing the state total daily capacity by 500
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tests lesser . This proved to be a strain towards the remaining laboratories,
especially since the SDMC enforced a ruling from 1st August 2020 onwards
that every person coming in from Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah were
required to undergo the RT-PCR test and be quarantined until their results
were proved to be positive . The strain was more evident in the southern
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zone hospital laboratories, namely Sarawak General Hospital and Sarawak
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Heart Centre since the state's main international airport (Kuching
International Airport) was located in this zone and a large number of flights
landed here.

Mobilisation of medical laboratory technologists

To help coping with the high number of samples received daily, especially
at the Sarawak General Hospital, measures were made to mobilise human
resources, specifically MLTs, from nearby district hospitals . This allowed
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for a larger number of staff to be working around the clock and on the
weekends. To further increase all the laboratories' testing capacity, special
approval was requested to recruit daily paid MLTs and scientific officers for
all five laboratories . This move has allowed more staff to work per day,
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with the capacity to run daily, including the weekends. This approval, and
later on with agreement that the daily paid MLTs to work overtime and on
weekends have increased the efficiencies of all the laboratories further.

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