Lister laboratory is a renowned pathological laboratory in Chennai. My family has trusted it for years and we had been using it for conducting all our pathological tests. But some of the recent incidences have put me off like anything and I have started believing that it is the most irresponsible laboratory and you are risking your life if you are trusting on the reports of Lister Laboratory.
The Services
They offer the service for collecting the blood samples from your house for which they charge some extra amount. If you are a member of this laboratory, you get some discount on all of their services. As my mother requires monthly blood check up for prothrombin time / INR, she had become a member of this laboratory.
THE HORROR STORY
Last month, as a regular check up, the person from Lister Laboratory had come to my house to collect the blood sample of my mother. As usual the person arrived very late, instead of coming in the morning, he came in the afternoon with regular reasons like he had to go to lots of places to collect the sample. So, he collected the sample in a hurry, leaving the spot on my mother’s hand from where the sample was collected - green and swollen.
And in the evening the report was received - SHOCKING - it mentioned INR as 8.6 ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
The report threw us in a great panic and we rushed to our cardiologist with the report, who was equally shocked to see the report. INR 8.6 for any human being means that he/she should be bleeding all over her body and way beyond normal. On examining my mother, the doctor found that she was perfectly alright and it is impossible that the INR is 8.6
It is worth mentioning over here that her life saving medication depends only this report and she has been undergoing this test for last 15 years on monthly basis, but had been getting it done very recently by Lister.
So, we immediately got it tested by another laboratory and the INR was 3.2 !!!!!!
Such a huge difference between the two test reports conducted on the same day on the same patient undergoing the same medication !!!!!!!!!!!!!
The doctor said the second report is correct and prescribed medication based on that.
Next day, I called up Lister (as they were not avaialble on the same day for comments) and mentioned all the facts and the lady on the phone replied like this,
’’ We do all our tests properly and there is no question of our tests getting wrong, in your case the test was done two times and both the times the result was the same.’’ When I mentioned that how is it possible when the patient’s blood pressure, pulse rate, everything is normal, how INR could be abnormally 8.6?????
The reply was very rude and irresponsible that, ’’We cannot do anything about it, our report is correct and if you have any further queries , contact our doctor’’ - What a nice and cool way to talk to the customer whose life has been put in danger by your reports.
So, finally we have decided to stop using Lister Laboratory and have changed our laboratory. I am talking to my lawyers to sue the laboratory for their irresponsible behaviour.