GPs told not to send blood test patients to UHG

Galway Bay fm newsroom - Family doctors across Galway have been told by the lab manager at UHG not to refer patients for blood tests.

The instruction is said to be on the grounds that the hospital does not provide a phlebotomy service for GPs.

According to the Irish Examiner, in an email to GPs, management said there had been “several circumstances of late whereby patients have been forwarded from GP practices to the outpatients phlebotomy department to have blood drawn for general tests.

The hospital has told GPs that UHG's phlebotomy department is solely for patients attending hospital out-patient clinics and the patients within the hospital itself.