Laboratory

THE NAIROBI HOSPITAL LABORATORY

The laboratory is one of the best equipped, staffed and offering most specialized tests in the region. In the quest for quality services to all our clients, we are ISO 15189 accredited by Kenya Accreditation Services (KENAS). A quality coordinator ensures maintenance of ISO and all quality Assurance programs are up-held. Like the rest of the hospital, we have been certified for ISO 14001: 2004 and ISO 22000: 2005. The Laboratory is headed by a Consultant Pathologist/ Manager and each of the sections has a Senior Technologist supervising and a consultant Pathologist reviewing all the results. Before we start testing, daily internal quality controls and calibrations are ran to assure quality of the reports. We are enrolled to several International External Quality Assurance Schemes for international peer reviews.

The Doctors’ Plaza laboratory is on the ground floor of the Doctors Plaza Building in the main hospital.

The Upper Hill Medical center (UHMC) Laboratory is situated on the first floor of the UHMC building on Ralph Bunche road, just 100 meters from the main hospital.

The Warwick Laboratory is located in the basement of Warwick Outpatient center at Gigiri, opposite the United Nations at Gigiri Nairobi.

The Galleria Laboratory is located on the second floor of Galleria Shopping Mall in the Galleria Outpatient centre opposite the Bomas of Kenya.

Service & Sections

We offer all routine laboratory tests, blood donor services, specialized & referral laboratory tests. For all established laboratory tests, we do not refer our patients elsewhere but there are a few of the newer and rare tests which we refer to our collaborators in United Kingdom, Italy, South Africa and USA. To receive the best & professional laboratory services, clients need to come with a duly filled laboratory request form from their doctor. There are however a few tests that the clients can make a self request; Malaria test, Haemoglobin tests, Blood Grouping, Pregnancy test, HIV blood testing with mandatory counseling, Cholesterol, Prostate Antigen (PSA) test and Blood Sugar test. For all the other tests patients need a doctor who will not only order the test but also interpret the results and recommend treatment.

 

Working Hours

Main Laboratory 24 hours in operation
Doctors Plaza Lab from 8.00am to 6.00pm
UHMC Lab from 7.00am to 7.00pm
Warwick Lab from 7.00am to 7.00pm
Galleria Lab from 7.00am to 7.00pm

Test Information

Fasting Blood tests; these include fasting blood sugar, fasting lipid profile and can only be tested if the patient has fasted overnight a maximum of 12 hours. If howeVer patient fasts overnight and comes to test after 10.00am; this will no longer be fasting but starving thus giving inaccurate results

Glucose Tolerance tests (GTT): this test requires patient to come fasting overnight and needs to be booked by the laboratory as it takes several hours to collect the required samples.

Paternity Testing; these tests requires a booking with the lab and requires presence of mother, child to be tested and the and the alleged father. In case it is a legal requirement; a court order will be necessary and if client need a lawyer/ witness, they should bring them along.

Bone Marrow Aspirations; this can only be collected by a Haematologist on appointment with the lab.

Fine Needle Aspiration; this is also collected only by a Histopathology Pathologist (Histopathologist).

Filaria Parasite tests; blood can only be taken at the following time;

  1. Between 10 am and mid-day
  2. Between 10.00pm and Mid-night

Semen Analysis; requires special instruction on collection and samples collected before meeting the laboratory requirement will be rejected.

TNH-Lab

Laboratory tests have different TAT depending on; Type of test, number of patients carrying out similar test, performance of quality control and doctor’s requirements;

  1. The laboratory technologist/ attendant collecting/ handling your sample will give you the specific TAT. This information is also available in our Laboratory Users’ Guide and in our website.
  2. We give priority to emergency tests and urgent tests as indicated by the doctor or patients condition.
  3. If our Quality Control (Q/C) shows failure, we have to take corrective action until Q/C passes then we run the tests. We keep our clients informed of these or any other delays.

Biochemistry

Equipped with ultra modern state of the art analyzers; Architect C8000 is fully automated with ability to perform 1200 tests per hour, broad based test menu and is user friendly. It is backed up by the COBAS INTEGRA 400 plus. The minicap equipment runs electrophoresis tests.

 The general chemistry test menu here includes-Liver functions tests, Renal, Lipid, Cardiac, Bone metabolism, amylase/lipase, Glucose, CRP and HBAIC. Also tests introduced are IgM, IgG, IgA, C3, C4, Lithium and Transferrin. The C8000 plays a major role in realizing customer expectations by providing effective, efficient and reliable diagnosis.

Special Chemistry

The section’s main functions are specialized tests including; Immunology, Endocrinology, drugs of abuse, therapeutic drugs, serology and out sourced tests.

The Hospital management continuously modernizes this section so that the rare tests being outsourced by other hospitals to overseas are tested routinely inhouse in our Lab with one day turnaround time (TAT).

Some of newly added tests include;

  • Parathyroid Hormone
  • Adrenocorticotropic Hormone
  • Anti CCP (anti cyclic citrulinated peptide)
  • NT PRO BNP
  • ANCA (Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody)
  • Complement 3 and 4.
  • Mumps
  • Varicella Zooster (Chicken Pox)
  • Mycoplasma pneumoniae
  • Measles
  • Aldosterone
  • Renin
  • Cardiolipin

Molecular Biology

The section is currently testing viral load tests for HIV, Human Papilloma Virus, Dengue, MRSA, Candida, Aspergillus, Chlamydia, Salmonella, Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B. It also tests Hepatitis C genotyping, HIV genotyping (HIV drug resistant test) and TB Genotyping.

Microbiology

Apart from the routine sample process and culture on Agar plate, we take pride in having a semi-automated, Vitek II for culture & Identification of micro-organisms, Blood culture machine Bact/alert 3D, which identifies a positive growth on blood cultures in 1-3 days, a shorter time than the usual manual method. The Bact/alert 3D has an in-built incubator and reads the cultures

every 15 minutes using the optical system, which gives a wavelength that is converted into a reading. The equipment also tests for TB culture in blood.

The section also has Affirm DNA for Vaginitis test, which include tests for Trichomonas vaginalis, Candida, Gardnarella vaginalis, Chlamydia antigen and streptococcus Group “B” antigen. With the PREVI colourgram, the automated gramstainer, the section is able to process gramstain slides and issue results within 2 to 4 hours. The section also has a TB Lab that is equipped with BACTEC MGIT equipment for TB Culture, GeneXpert for TB PCR and the reports are ready with 4hours and the HAIN equipment for MRSA and TB drug resistance testing.

Haematology

The section is highly specialized in routine haematology, blood transfusion, Immuno haematology and special haematology techniques. The routine haematology tests have a very short turnaround time. The Section is leading in the region in blood coagulation techniques and the consultant haematologist gives all required clinical comments to the generated reports. With a highly organized blood donor services, the unit ensures our transfusion services meet the needs of all our hospital clients.

The section is specialized in the routine biopsiesdiagnosis, pap smears, fluid cytology and Fine Needle Aspirations (FNA).There are 4 highly qualified pathologists who cover this unit, thus availing quality results within 1-3days, and are available for consultations with clinicians. As a pioneer in diagnostic immunohistochemistry since early 1990s, immunophenotyping of cancers has been established to very high quality diagnostic standards. The newest technique in the section is Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) DNA test. The section is also equipped with a cryostat, all frozen sections are routinely reported as surgery proceeds on request by the Surgeon.

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