FIVE months after opening its doors in Guyana, QualiTEST, an internationally-linked laboratory testing facility, with head offices at 21 First Street Alberttown, Georgetown, is expanding with a new lab at Diamond.
This second facility was officially opened last Friday at Lot 2 Diamond Public Road, East Bank of Demerara, three doors from the Diamond Regional Hospital, following the first launched on October 8, 2013.

In her brief remarks at the opening ceremony, Chief Executive Officer/Director, Yvette Irving, commented on the name of the lab ‘QualiTEST’ and stressed the importance of ‘quality assurance’ to lab testing.
She assured that the gold standard for QualiTEST is to fulfill and maintain compliance with local standards, ethics, laws and regulations.
QualiTEST, she said, has established a system that provides for the continuous monitoring and evaluation of its workflow. She assured: “This system is designed to fulfill and maintain compliance with local standards, ethics, laws and regulations and we are aspiring to move our system to fulfill international standards, enabling the data emanating from our laboratory to be accepted globally.”

On this note, Irving said that, although there can be many definitions of quality, ‘QualiTEST’ laboratory defines quality as the guarantee that each and every step in its total testing process is correctly performed by competent persons, using validated equipment and methods, thus assuring valuable and safe medical decision-making, leading to effective patient care.
Irving added that the path of QualiTEST’s workflow begins outside the laboratory’s boundaries with a provider’s request for a laboratory examination and ends outside the laboratory’s boundaries when the laboratory’s result supports a provider’s decision-making.
The opening up of the Diamond facility will make for speedy and affordable testing access to the company’s wide range of services, whilst broadening the scope, spectrum and efficiency of laboratory testing in Guyana.

The doors were thrown open to the public immediately following Friday’s launch, and the lab will be open for business from Monday through Saturday, from 07:00 hrs to 16:00 hrs.
Testing offered at the facility includes: Cholesterol, pregnancy test, full lipid profile, other biochemistry testing related to the liver, kidney, hypertension, blood sugar tests, glucose tolerance, urinalysis, serology for dengue, malaria, VDRL, H-Plyori and more. The least turn-around time will be about two hours before results are available, according to Phlebotomist/Receptionist Sonia Kerutt.
Providing friendly but highly efficient and professional service at the facility will be trained staff, including CEO/Director, Yvette Irving; Technical/Quality Manager, Maricea Comacho; Medical Lab Technician, Raymond Pyle and Phlebotomist/Receptionist, Sonia Kerutt.
With CEO, Yvette Irving at the helm of the company, specialising in state-of-the-art lab testing, is geared to offer and at the same time achieve much in the line of laboratory medicine.
Irving outlined that research has shown that 80-90 per cent of all diagnoses is made based on laboratory testing data. In the absence of laboratory data testing or on account of emergencies the other 20 % of diagnosis or medical decisions have to be made using clinical observation.
In this regard the director stressed, “Laboratory medicine, when practiced, should set high quality standards.” She said regulation of quality in the health care sector is based on and includes certification of a facility and staff, accreditation, quality monitoring and standardisation.

With new diseases constantly emerging and existing ones becoming even more prevalent, Irving is of the view that the scope is getting wider for laboratory testing. “Testing menus should be wider now for these infectious markers, especially cancer markers too. Albeit, it is not just widening your scope but also widening the quality of your testing, and that is why labs need to get accredited because people are going to come from all parts of the world and when they get sick in Guyana they will have to have tests done, and the tests will only be accurate and precise when the lab is accredited, or the test results will not be recognized globally,” she concluded.
Irving, who has distinguished herself as one of the country’s leading practitioners in laboratory research, has given yeoman service in this field for several years. Earlier in her profession, Irving functioned as Superintendent of Labs, Georgetown Hospital/Ministry of Health, and later Country Lab Director, then eventually Director of Standards and Technical Services.
She later became National Director of Laboratory Services at the Ministry of Health, responsible for all lab testing facilities (both public and private) across Guyana.
In 2009 she proceeded to Ghana, Africa where her work involved supporting the President’s Emergency Programme for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Project, strengthening laboratories. After spending two years, though still linked to the CDC Programme, headquartered in Uganda, she has returned to serve the people of the Caribbean.
Ms. Irving is currently a part of the African Field Epidemiology Network, the Implementing Partner for the Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) and works along with CDC Caribbean (Barbados) with head offices based in Uganda.

Her work involves preparing laboratories for accreditation in the Caribbean, preparing their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Management and Technical Procedures; Quality Manual and the like, for international accreditation. At this time twelve labs are being prepared for international accreditation in the Caribbean.
Written By Shirley Thomas