"Treatment from laboratory staff - Cytology"

My GP requested a sample of semen to be handed in to the Crosshouse hospital laboratory at the end of July 2020. I dually did as instructed, when I got to the correct area to hand it in the first lab tech I spoke to said they would have to call upstairs for someone to come and collect it. So we waited and then the next person was not particularly helpful or pleasant & refused to take the sample and on asking why I was told that, that service was paused  due to covid-19. This staff member was called down from Cytology and not  Microbiology where the covid-19 samples are processed and was informed it was only just beginning to open and would not be fully functioning until maybe September and refused to take the sample therefore wasting the entire sample.

Even though we had arrived before the cut off time and we had followed the hospitals own instruction leaflet.  On leaving we were given another testing kit which had the exact same letter with no mention of the service being paused at this time, this has led us to believe that the person we spoke to was just uninterested and disingenuous.

The emotional roller coaster of what we are going through has only compounded by the lack of understanding and empathy that we received at our visit today. My GP surgery is an excellent practice and they are doing all they can for us and I am sure if they had known that this service was paused they would not have started unnecessary testing until such times as the service was up and running again.