Question NW620 to the Minister of Health
06 August 2015 - NW620
James, Dr WG to ask the Minister of Health
For each forensic chemistry laboratory in the country, (a) what amount of (i) postmortem and (ii) premortem drunk driving blood alcohol samples were unprocessed as at 28 February 2015 and (b) how many (i) new samples have been received in 2015 and (ii) of these new samples have been processed to date?
Reply:
(a) (i) Post Mortem unprocessed drunk driving blood alcohol samples:
28 February 2015: 6 980
31 July 2015; 3 964
(ii) Pre Mortem unprocessed drunk driving blood alcohol samples:
28 February 2015: 54 129
31 July 2015; 39 433
(b) (i) New samples that have been received from January 2015 to 31st July 2015: 41 925
(ii) New samples that have been processed from January 2015 to 31st July 2015: 63 431
This means that new samples received by the 31 July 2015 since the beginning of the year are 41 925, but in that period 63 431 samples were processed.
This is because we have divided all samples into two categories. One category is for new samples which must be done immediately to avoid backlogs. The second category is for historically backlog samples. These are done bit-by-bit as soon as the current samples are done. Hence the 20 000 extra samples are from this backlog category.
END.