QEH gets donation of high-precision tool

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) has received a major boost to its diagnostic and analytical capabilities with the donation of a high-precision analytical balance valued at approximately $30 000.

The scale, a gift from the Barbados National Standards Institute (BNSI) in collaboration with regional agencies, is expected to strengthen the hospital’s ability to deliver accurate and reliable results in both clinical and post-mortem settings.

Chief Physiotherapist Dr Gerry Warner, speaking on behalf of Director of Clinical and Diagnostic Services Dr Corey Forde at Thursday’s handover ceremony, welcomed the donation and lauded the regional partnerships that continue to support the hospital’s work.

“We at the QEH have had a long history of collaboration with the Barbados National Standards Institute and by extension, as well, all other local and regional agencies that assist, including the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality,” he said. “This equipment will go a long way in helping us ensure that we have adequate standards and that the instrumentation and devices that we use are accurate in their measurement in the QEH lab.”

Dr Warner added that the balance’s use spans both life-saving and forensic services: “This is not only for living persons, but actually also for those in post-mortems. So when they say measurement for all times and all people, that is a very true statement.”

Chief Executive Officer of the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), Dr Sharonmae Smith Walker, underscored the significance of the new scale in supporting the hospital’s ongoing Platinum accreditation and international credibility.

Dr Smith Walker, who previously served as CEO of the Jamaica National Agency for Accreditation, said she was proud to witness the QEH lab maintain its high standards.

“In a former life… I was very pleased to present the accreditation award to your lab when you were accredited. And this was a major milestone for you because the accreditation showed that you were now amongst the leaders in medical service in the world,” she recalled. “To see that you have just recently concluded an interim assessment for your accreditation scope again supports the fact that you are maintaining your accreditation… not just at the gold level, but you are at the platinum level.”

She added, “If you do not have medical tests from an accredited laboratory—and we’re very pleased that you have a public laboratory, your main public laboratory, that is accredited—you don’t have that trust in the result that is generated. And it is all underpinned by metrology.”

Dr Smith Walker emphasised that precision instruments like the donated analytical balance are essential to upholding trust in patient outcomes: “Measurements—crucial—because we want to ensure that there is consistency. You know, you have labs that can do it right on one or two occasions. But you want, when you are sending your relative here in the middle of the night, that the team is as sharp as when they came in the morning. And this is what accreditation does. All underpinned by metrology.”

Chief Medical Laboratory Technologist Adrian Howard also welcomed the donation, stressing that accuracy and consistency are at the heart of everything the laboratory does.

“Precision and accuracy are really the fundamental hallmarks of any laboratory,” he said.

“Whether it be a clinical lab like ours… or even a research laboratory, having the ability to have critical measurements, accuracy and precision—it does a lot for the laboratory.”

Howard disclosed that the QEH laboratory processes between three and five million tests each year and is seeing increased demand from polyclinics across the island. He acknowledged that while some older equipment had proven resilient, the new addition would significantly improve the lab’s efficiency and reliability.

“We can always do with more equipment,” he stated. “Once you start with precision and accuracy, once those are good, everything else usually falls in behind those.”

(SZB)