Timor-Leste pathology

Focussed on building the capacity of laboratory staff at the Hospital Nacional Guido Valadares (HNGV) in Dili and the National Reference Laboratory, our caregivers worked alongside Timorese pathology technicians to develop their capacity to meet standards that ensure all test results were accurate and timely, and doctors were better able to diagnose and treat patients.

Major achievements

• Introduced automated testing to Dili’s two main pathology laboratories, tripling the number of samples the lab could process, significantly improving the reliability of results and allowing screening for a greater number of diseases. Previously, all testing was done manually and results were unreliable
• Introduced a pathology courier service to provide Dili’s community health centres with access to accurate disease diagnosis
• Opened a new collection centre, increasing the quality of blood samples taken and improving the time it takes for those results to be returned to the patient’s doctor
• Trained over 80 laboratory staff as phlebotomists
• By 2016, more than 11,000 samples had been couriered to the national hospital
• 250,513 patient episodes from 2013-2018
• Average turn-around time for pathology samples for ED, ICU, maternity, paediatrics and perinatology was reduced to just 1hr 45mins

In 2018, these services were fully transitioned to HNGV and the National Laboratory. St John of God Social Outreach's Pathology Development Program was proudly supported by ConocoPhillips as operator of Bayu-Undan Joint Venture.