The Department of Microbiology is housed in the oldest building of the Lady Ridgeway Hospital with an archival value. Until the appointment of the first fulltime onsite consultant clinical microbiologist in 2004, the administration of the department was under the supervision the consultant histopathologist.
Improvement of services provided by the department was done over the years and presently advance instruments like automated blood culture machine, Gene X-pert machine etc. are housed to provide quick and accurate results.
The department is assuring the quality of results issued by the laboratory by having internal quality control programmes as well as by taking part in external quality assurance programmes. The Department of Microbiology, LRH is a member of the National quality assurance programme in microbiology as well as, it takes part in external quality assurance programmes conducted by Christian Medical College Vellore, India and a WHO programme conducted by the UK periodically over the last few years.
The team of the microbiology department consists of medical, technical and support staff. The medical staff includes a consultant clinical microbiologist, two medical officers and post graduate trainee doctors in Medical microbiology and Virology. The technical staff includes the senior medical laboratory technologist and 08 medical laboratory technologists (MLT). The support staff consists of three orderlies and four health assistants. The administration role of the MLTT and supporting staff is under the supervision of the Superintendent MLT of the LRH.
Dr. Deepa Perera
Consultant Microbiologist (Acting)
Aiming for Paediatric and adolescent (Up to 16 years) Spinal deformity correction, The Lady Ridgway Hospital is building a dedicated theatre suit with latest equipment and instruments and the unit would be fully functional within few months.
Clinic: Wednesday 1.00 PM
The aim is to generate quality and timely microbiology reports for better patient care.
The medical team headed by the Consultant Microbiologist provides advice on antibiotic management to ICUs and also attend to referrals from wards for antimicrobial and infection control advice.
The consultant microbiologist also provides services as the technical head of the infection prevention and control unit of the hospital. Therefore the department of microbiology provides the microbiology services for all infection prevention and control activities of the LRH.
Microbiology investigations performed in the department include;
- Direct microscopy, culture, and antibiotic susceptibility testing in following clinical samples
- Blood
- Sterile fluids (cerebro-spinal fluid, peritoneal fluid, pleural fluid, aspirates from sterile sites, bone marrow aspirates)
- Pus aspirates, wound cultures, tissue biopsy samples
- Respiratory samples, throat swabs
- Urine and faeces
- CSF Latex agglutination test for detection of bacterial antigen
- Full reports – Sterile fluids, Urine, Stool
- TB PCR (Gene Xpert Mycobacterium tuberculosis/Rifampicin assay) -Sputum, CSF etc.
- HIV screening
- Dengue NS1/ IgM and IgG
- Screening and surveillance cultures pertaining to infection prevention and control
- Collection of specimens to be sent to National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory (NTRL) for TB culture and PCR
- Collection and transport of specimens to Medical Research Institute for specialized tests.
The Medical Microbiology department supports the clinical services, education of medical laboratory technologists, medical students and postgraduate trainee doctors and engages in training and research.