Haematology Practice in Distressed Economy

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2010 in the subject Medicine - Public Health, , language: English, abstract: In most countries, there are likely to be some laboratories with limited resources, but in economic distressed countries, there are few laboratories with highly trained technologists and sophisticated equipment. In these countries therefore, i t is not unusual for laboratory tests to be carried out by nurses and ordelies in outpatient consulting rooms, corridors and in rural health centres. Understaffing,poor morale, inadequate equipment and erratic supplies of reagents are chronic problems in laboratories in poorer countries and these factors have a major impact on the range and quality of services that can be offered. Many smaller laboratories are multifunctional, performing Haematology, Parasitology, Clinical chemistry and Bacteriology tests. A blood transfusion service is usually available at the larger institutions and unless there is a national blood service, laboratory staff will be responsible for donor selection, blood collection and issuing of blood. If there is no organisation of public health laboratories, routine laboratories will be required to provide high quality health surveillance data for epidemiological and public health monitoring. In a number of economically distressed countries, the difficulties are compounded by the fact that health services are becoming overwhelmed by expanding epidemics of HIV/AIDS(Human immunodeficiency vrus/Acquired immune deficiency syndrome), tuberculosis and malria. Diagnosis and monitoring of these diseases require a healthy,robust and reliable laboratory service. Thus malria diagnosis must be confirmed by a laboratory test because other disorders can masquerade clinically as malria. The diagnosis of tuberculosis may require bon marrow aspiration and culture and trephine biospy examination, especially in patients who are also HIV positive because in these cases sputum tests for acid fast or