Changing patterns of demand for chemical pathology on-call services in four north Dublin Hospitals.

Developments in the demand for out-of-hours chemical pathology over the period when the Richmond and Jervis St. hospitals amalgamated and moved to a new hospital at Beaumont are presented alongside the similar workload from Blanchardstown Hospital whose laboratory services remained unchanged during the period. The requests from the Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments before and after midnight are also detailed. Data is presented from the Richmond from 1986 and from the other hospitals from 1987 using the first 17 rostered on-call nights of each year. With the exception of Beaumont where the diversity of tests requested was such that the working day had effectively extended, the work load consisted largely of urea and electrolytes, glucose, blood gases and amylase. The demand continued to rise. In Blanchardstown, the total number of patient specimens rose by 39% over two years and the volume increase in A&E was 69% over the same period. The number of specimens from inpatients at Beaumont in 1989 was 49% greater than the combined total from Jervis St. and the Richmond in 1987 and the total patient specimens rose by 14% from 1988 to 1989.