Javier’s father-in-law tested positive for coronavirus after having a PCR at work. As established in the protocols, all the family members with whom he had been in contact had to keep quarantine and take the test as well, so Javier went to his health center on August 18 and was told that in 48 hours he would have the results. “When that day arrived and they hadn’t told us anything, I called. They told us they were late and I thought that as we were in Madrid, it was normal,” he says in Hour 25. Last Monday he called again and his interlocutor acknowledged that there was “a serious delay” and asked for patience. This Wednesday, they have contacted him confessing to feel “ashamed” for the wait: “They have told me that all the health centers that refer the tests to the Clinical Hospital they are with a tremendous delay because there are no reagents. “
The president of the Spanish Association of Laboratory Technicians (AETEL), Juan Carlos Rodríguez, explains that the machines that are used to carry out the tests on a massive scale need these reagents to obtain these results. There are machines that are capable of doing a hundred PCRs at a time, but at the same time they need many reagents that are now scarce, that is why those large devices have been put aside and other smaller ones are being used that do 40 or 50 simultaneous PCRs. “We have a problem with the accumulation of reagents. In Catalonia, Aragon, Castilla y León, Andalusia and, above all, in Madrid, I believe that the leaders have not taken the necessary measures so that in these two months that the pandemic has given us a truce a storage was made “, regrets Rodríguez, who, on the other hand, does consider that sufficient collection of Individual Protection Equipment, the so-called PPEs, was made.
Listen to “Spain is not at the moment or at 50% of its capacity to do PCR” on Play SER
At a time when “the most important thing is to look for asymptomatic positives”, Rodríguez also criticizes the lack of personnel: “Not enough senior lab technicians have been hired to do PCR. They should be working in three shifts – morning, afternoon and night – as happens in other communities such as Castilla y León, Asturias and the Basque Country, where the workforce has doubled. “He also remembers that” without health personnel to follow the trail of For those patients who have had PCR, there is no epidemic that can be controlled. “
From AETEL they strongly criticize that for these reasons, the lack of storage and personnel, “Spain is not at the moment or at 50% of its capacity to do PCR.”
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