Patients Perception on services related issues at Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH) Clinical Laboratory

Abstract Introduction: Laboratory Services is an essential service that is part of the hospital system to aid physicians to come to a definite diagnosis for their patients. Being an essential service, it is very important that the laboratory service run in a manner that satisfies its customers. Thus, it is very important to take perceptions of patients who readily excess these services to get their point of view on issues they face while excessing laboratory services and how best the profession can work with the MoHMS to create avenues for improvements that would benefit the patients. No studies to date have been conducted in Fiji until now to gauge the issues that are faced by patients accessing laboratory services at government hospitals. Similar perception studies have been done on a large scale looking at the views of patients on the services provided by Nurses and Doctors thus this study aimed to explore the perceptions of patients on services provided by the largest laboratory department in Fiji that is the CWMH. Materials and Method: Patients who attended the laboratory outpatient department of Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH) in Suva, Fiji, during August and October of 2022 provided data for the study, which was qualitative in nature. The study included all patients who visited the CWMH laboratory outpatient department during the data collection period, regardless of gender or ethnicity, and who were older than 18. For this study, in-depth interviews with 20 participants were conducted until data saturation was reached. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were utilized to gather data utilizing a semi-structured open-ended questionnaire. To identify the themes and sub-themes for the findings, the data were transcribed and subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. Results: Twenty patients in all were questioned, ten (or 50%) of them were men and ten (or 50%) were women. Unaware of change in location, lack of signage or other means to inform patients that staff is inside, privacy and confidentiality, waiting time, waiting area, and issues with occupational health services (OHS) are among the six themes that emerged from the data analysis. Although they encountered numerous obstacles in their attempts to receive the best care possible, the patients had high expectations. Users of the laboratory outpatient department began to have a bad opinion of it because of the department's shortcomings. Conclusion: This study revealed that patients who visited the CWMH laboratory outpatient department more frequently than not had general dissatisfaction with the services they received. In order to improve the delivery of services and increase patient satisfaction, MoHMS and service providers must investigate the legitimate concerns that patients have expressed.