The director of Lead Healthcare, David van Hartskamp, thinks it is ‘terrible’. “Thousands of people are still waiting for their results, families are waiting at Schiphol and do not know whether they can join their flight.”
Busy laboratory
Lead Healthcare has more than a hundred test locations throughout the Netherlands. Since you can test there for free before you go on holiday, it is ‘extremely busy’. “We can get rid of all those tests, the tubes arrive in the lab on time. But then things go wrong, they can’t process the results in time.”
Earlier, Lead Healthcare promised that the results of holidaymakers would be known within 24 hours. Because they can no longer keep this promise and hundreds of concerned people keep calling the company constantly, they will temporarily stop testing from today. “Until further notice, we have closed all test streets for new tests. Anyone who had already booked an appointment can still come. We are not making new appointments for a while, we must first put things in order,” says Van Hartskamp.
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Especially in the Saltro laboratory, the pressure is too high. The company speaks to RTL Nieuws of an ‘explosive growth’ in the number of tests that came in to them this weekend. “Normally there were 2000 tests in a weekend, this weekend it was 15,000,” said a spokesperson.
‘We are not set up for this’
According to Saltro, this has to do with various corona fires in the country in combination with the holiday tests. “We are not equipped for this, which means that backlogs have arisen.”
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Several GGD locations, mainly in the north of the country, are affiliated with Saltro. Both GGD Hollands Noorden and GGD Zaanstreek confirm that there is a delay in the results.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport says that solutions are currently being sought to solve the problem at Saltro. Among other things, by investigating whether test flows that would initially go to Saltro can be transferred to another laboratory. “We want to solve the problems as quickly as possible and achieve the agreed lead times.”
Damage is dealt with
According to the ministry, in addition to the explosive growth, the problem was also caused by a machine that was not validated in time. According to the spokesperson, the damage caused by this will be quickly remedied and the problems will be solved within a few days. “Nobody wants this, we all really want everyone to get a test result quickly.”
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There are many messages on social media from Dutch people who are still waiting for their results. For example, some are waiting at the border of France until they can enter the country with a negative test result, others have missed their flight because the result came too late.
Not with flight
For example, Dalia Bamerny was waiting for that one e-mail with her whole family at Schiphol on Saturday afternoon. “But he didn’t come. And the airline was clear: if you don’t have a rash, you can’t come. My sister just cried, it was so bad.”
In the end, Dalia received the results 47 hours after her test. The plane had already left by then. “An employee at Schiphol said on Saturday that we were the umpteenth who were not allowed to fly because the results came too late. Really very annoying.”
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Director Hartskamp of Lead Healthcare calls on travelers who have yet to be tested to check carefully what test is needed in your holiday country. “In many European countries an antigen test is sufficient. These tests do not have to go to a laboratory and you will have the results within half an hour. If your holiday country approves this, do it instead of a PCR test.”
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