COVID-19 related challenges faced by Medical Laboratory Staff: A Review of Literature
1 Medical Laboratory Scientist (WHO SSA), World Health Organization, Nadi, Fiji.
2 School of Public Health and Primary Care, Fiji National University, Suva, Fiji.
Review Article
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2021, 12(02), 232–237
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjarr.2021.12.2.0589
Publication history:
Received on 06 October 2021; revised on 07 November 2021; accepted on 09 November 2021
Abstract:
Laboratory testing on the confirmation of COVID-19 results is an essential component and without the expertise of trained laboratory technicians this is not possible. The aim of this study was to review the impacts of COVID-19 on medical laboratory staff. The literature search was done using Medline, Embase, Scopus, and Proquest databases, and relevant keywords were applied to find studies which have been conducted in the field of Medical Laboratory Science specifically looking at the impacts on staff caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. All the studies pertaining to the topic published in 2020 and 2021 in English language were reviewed and the main themes were identified. The results showed that impacts of COVID-19 were felt by the staff, as they were pushed to their limits causing stress and burnout. Apart from this laboratory staff were faced with issues such as; shortage in terms of human resources, consumables, testing kits and reagents. This was an added factor to delays in testing and disruption to the testing Turnaround time (TATs) and also contributed to the stress and burnout of staff. Laboratory professionals and other health care staffs were pushed to the limits to ensure patient care was not affected and each patient was attended too without delay. Laboratory personnel’s were pushed to their limits to ensure that test results were given on time.
Keywords:
Impacts; COVID-19; Medical laboratory staff; Literature review
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Copyright © 2021 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0