As coronavirus cases continue to surge in Israel, medical staff at testing labs across the country have warned they are severely understaffed and working extremely long hours might lead to grave errors in testing.
According to the lab chiefs, who have approcahed the Health Ministry on the matter, they have not been provided with additional manpower since the outbreak began three months ago.
As a result, most of the staff has been instructed to work on COVID-19, which has led to delays in them processing other tests, such as venereal diseases and pregnancies.
"We are conducting coronavirus tests for all hospitalized patients and the general public, we're talking about thousands of tests a day," said Esther Admon, CEO of the Israel Association for Medical and Research Laboratories Experts.
"In the past, the staff we have only worked eight-hour shifts and now, they have to conduct tests 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's a heavy and very painful burden."
According to Admon, the heavy workload might lead to serious testing errors. "We're trying to work around the clock and do all we can to provide the results when we get them, but if a sample is not tested 48 hours after it was taken, the result is less reliable," Admon said.
"The sooner we get the results, the sooner can isolate the patient and conduct epidemiological investigation," she added.
Admon also said that labs cannot verify how many samples were tested 48 hours after they had been retrieved from a person. "We get the samples in a Styrofoam box, put it in the freezer and start testing them batch by batch," she said.
"The cooling room has too many samples to count and it's hard to track them. If we can't keep up with the pace, people are either going to get false results or we reject the samples out of hand.
She added that some employees just sleep on benches at the testing facilities instead of going home and are extremely overworked. "They sleep, live and eat there."
"We are trying to make a work arrangement with the finance and health ministries," she said. "They must understand that we are in a battle against coronavirus and need more employees for the evening, night and weekend shifts, so the workload can be shared. We need trained manpower for the long-term."