MICROBIOLOGY LABORATORY

The department of Microbiology is located on the second floor block of Yiaco Adan Diagnostic Center. The department comprise of two eminent medical microbiologists and 11 fully trained laboratory technicians for the organization and functioning of the department. Primarily, the department aims to provide quality controlled patient care services in clinical microbiology to outpatients and inpatients attending Adan Hospital. In addition, the department will be catering to diagnostic needs of other hospitals and clinics of Kuwait and adjoining neighboring countries. For this, state of art diagnostic infrastructure in medical microbiology viz. Bacteriology, Immunology, Mycology and Parasitology has been installed in the laboratory.

The department is fully equipped with all necessary infrastructure, instruments and tools to meet its needs. The main automated equipments in the department are the BacT Alert 3D (Biomerieux), Microscan Walk Away 96 (Dade Behring) and Urisys 1800(Roche Diagnostic). While BacT Alert is being used for early detection of pathogens causing septicemia, Microscan Walk Away 96 identifies bacterial isolates and performs their antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Routine urine analysis can be rapidly performed on Urisys. Some of other important equipments available in the department are automated culture media plate pouring system and sterilizer, class II biological safety cabinets, microscopes, incubators, hot air oven, water bath, refrigerators and deep freezer.

The department of Microbiology has well defined workflow within the department. It has 8 work stations for direct demonstration techniques; bacteriological culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of various exudates, transudates and body fluids like urine, blood, CSF, and semen; stool examination for parasites; routine urine examination and for immunological/serological testing. The department is following customized SOPs for performing various diagnostic tests at each work station. Emphasis is also being laid on internal quality control at each step. Steps are being taken to participate in EQA programme of UK NEQAS for Microbiology. After reports are generated, they are reviewed by medical microbiologists and fed into LIMS. Final reports are printed and dispatched in a time efficient manner. To summarize, the department combines rapidity and quality to generate reproducible reports which are useful and beneficial for the diagnosis and management of patients.