A new containerised laboratory from New Zealand has been setup at Vaiola Hospital after being transported from Queen Salote Wharf yesterday, 19 November.

The microbiology PC2 laboratory is made up of two adjoining containers complete with equipment, and took just six hours to put together onsite by two contractors from EPCM New Zealand.

Grant Sorensen, Marketing Manager from the supplier Intracor Commodity Exports Ltd, told Matangi Tonga the lab was donated by the New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited (ESR) through New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT).

“It’s a general hospital lab but it’s up to New Zealand standard quality.”

He explained the container lab idea came about when ESR through MFAT wanted to trial a transportable lab which could be easily picked up and taken to a location. They also wanted the lab to be resilient to extreme weather.

The $500,000 project took around 8 months from signing the contract to fitting out the containers in New Zealand, and transporting them to Tonga and setting up.

“It is completely fitted out as a lab would be anywhere else in the world. And there’s quite a bit of new equipment that we put in it. And a lot of labs around New Zealand have donated equipment.”

Some of the equipment includes fridges, air conditioning, shower and an eye wash facility, fire extinguishers, and a filter system.

“It’s all setup and ready to go and all we have to do is turn the power on.”

“It’s up to the doctors to decide who they’ll put in here and what’ll they’ll do,” he added.

The official opening of the containerised microbiology PC2 laboratory is scheduled to take place on 12 December.

New Zealand based companies that contributed to setting up the laboratory are EPCM, ACQUA, and Novalab Ltd .