The Laboratory at Town Hospital

The laboratory is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week

The tests available, in one place

The laboratory covers the test groups most often requested in day-to-day practice: complete blood work, liver and kidney function, blood sugar, hormones and thyroid tests, and tumour and viral markers. The machinery is modern and the team is trained, and the reason for keeping these groups under one roof is purely practical.

For you, it means you are not moving between different places to complete a single request. In many cases one sample is enough for several tests on the same request, so there is no repeated needle. If your doctor’s request contains abbreviations you do not understand, show it to the reception team; they will explain what will be taken and why, and whether any of it needs preparation beforehand.

Why the laboratory runs day and night

The laboratory is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and is not tied to the outpatient clinics, which run from 10:00 to 22:00. You can come to give a sample at whatever hour suits you, including after midnight or before work, and without a prior appointment. If a doctor at the hospital has requested tests at the end of your visit, you can go straight to the laboratory on your way out of the clinic.

The radiology department, in the same building, also runs around the clock and houses a 3-Tesla MRI scanner and a 128-slice CT. That means blood tests and scans can be completed in a single visit instead of on two separate days. But if you have severe chest pain, sudden weakness on one side of the body, or your doctor suspects a clot, do not start with tests and do not wait for an appointment: go to the emergency department immediately. It is open twenty-four hours, and the emergency team decides which tests and scans are needed and in what order.

Fasting before a test: what it actually means

Not every test requires fasting, but some do, because food genuinely changes the reading. Fasting here means no food and no drinks other than water for a period set by the test itself, most often somewhere between eight and twelve hours. Water is allowed, and is in fact encouraged, because it makes the blood draw easier and quicker.

The things that break a fast without people realising: coffee and tea even without sugar, juice, chewing gum, and smoking. As for your regular medicines, do not stop them on your own and do not delay a dose; ask your treating doctor the day before whether to take them as usual or to hold them until after the sample is taken. And if you have eaten or drunk something by mistake, tell the laboratory team what you had and when. Delaying the draw by a few hours is far better than a misleading result that treatment decisions are then built on.

When your result is ready

How long a result takes depends on the test itself — that is a technical fact, not a delay tactic. Some tests need only the machine to run and come out quickly; others take a length of time that cannot be shortened, because the sample has to pass through set stages inside the analyser. A sample may also be re-run to confirm an unexpected reading before it is released, and that short delay is in your interest, not against it.

This is why the laboratory team tells you the expected time for your particular test when the sample is taken, rather than quoting one general number that does not apply to everyone. The advantage of a laboratory that runs around the clock is that your sample does not wait for the morning: a sample taken at three in the morning starts its journey immediately. As soon as a result is released, it becomes available to you through the results portal.

Your results on the portal — and never share the link

You can view your laboratory and radiology results securely through the results portal at https://townhospitaleg.com/my-results/. A result appears there as soon as it is released, without your having to come back to collect it. That means you can follow up on your result from home, and show it to your doctor at your next visit.

One important warning: your results are private health data that belongs to you alone, and the link you use to open them is a personal link. Do not send it in a group chat, do not post it, and do not give it to anyone who asks for it — whoever holds the link can see your results. If you want a family member or your doctor to see them, show them yourself from your own device. And if you are worried the link has reached someone else, tell the hospital so it can be dealt with.

Infection control, in plain language

The laboratory team is trained and bound by strict infection-control regulations, and those regulations mean specific things you can see with your own eyes. A new sterile needle is opened from its wrapper in front of every person, used once only, and dropped immediately into a closed sharps container. The skin is cleaned before the draw. Hands are cleaned and gloves changed between one patient and the next. Surfaces are cleaned and waste goes down its own separate route.

Added to that is the safeguard against a different error that matters just as much: your name is written on your sample tube at the moment it is drawn, right in front of you, so your sample stays tied to your name at every step. You are entitled to ask to see the needle wrapper opened, and entitled to ask about any step you did not follow. These are ordinary questions and the team is used to them.