MADISON, Wis. — UW Health Senior Medical Technologist Brian Bluel is used to doing lab work for cancer patients and processing tests for people who need transplants.
But lately, he’s spent most of his time processing COVID tests.
“It’s not just nurses and doctors. The whole system is geared up for this,” Bluel said.
Behind the doctors and nurses, are the lab techs working overtime behind the scenes, constantly seeing positive test after positive test run through their lab.
“It’s hard adapting. Some people are getting a little burnt out,” Bluel said.
Bluel said his lab has expanded by over 50% to help process the increasing number of COVID tests, and half the staff who work there pushed their normal job responsibilities to the side to help process tests.
“We were a lab that just did dayshifts Monday through Friday, but now, we are doing 24/7 testing in here,” Bluel said.
Across the hall from him is Senior Medical Tech Rachel Anderson who is juggling her typical responsibilities of reading cultures and running molecular tests and now, processing COVID tests.
“At first it was like, ‘Oh my gosh we have a positive’, because it was super rare,” Anderson said. “But then, as they’ve been picking up more and more and seeing the numbers increasing here at UW with the tests that we are running, it’s just sad and it’s hard to see that it’s happening here.”
Anderson said lab workers are constantly running low on supplies needed to do their jobs because manufacturers and distributers have to meet such high demands for COVID test supplies.
According to a UW Health spokesperson, “UW Health’s lab runs anywhere between 400 and 1,100 tests per day with an average of about 800.”
Bluel said even when he’s done working his shift, it’s difficult to go home and decompress because there’s still so much more work to be done when he comes back the next day.
“Knowing that there’s a lot of people involved that are trying to help and trying to fight this, maybe if you see how many people its affecting, maybe change a little of your habits,” Bluel said.
“It’s hard when other people aren’t aware of how it’s affecting everyone,” Anderson said. “There are a lot of people who are directly affected by running these tests and the stress that’s associated with that. I wish people would think of other people when they’re choosing to do things that might not be the safest.”
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