The Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital’s (GCGMH) COVID-19 testing facility on Tuesday resumed operations following the completion of “preventive maintenance work” done at the facility, an official said.

GCGMH medical chief Dr. Mutya Macuno, in a statement issued Tuesday morning, said they completed maintenance work on the molecular laboratory’s negative pressure ventilation system.

The facility will once again start to collect samples daily from 8:00 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“Please expect a minimum turnaround time of at least 48 hours for official results,” said Macuno.

On October 20, the GCGMH announced that it was suspending its COVID-19 testing operations “until further notice.”

Samples collected in Bohol throughout the duration of the maintenance operations were sent to Cebu, particularly the Regional Epidemiological Surveillance Unit of the Department of Health.

Also last week, the province’s containerized PCR laboratories suspended their operations after running out of reagents for the testing.

Bohol Interagency Task Force spokesperson Dr. Yul Lopez explained that the reagents are sourced in Metro Manila and the absence of regular flights could delay the resumption of the labs’ operations.

Both the GCGMH and the containerized labs started operations in August expediting the release of COVID-19 test results of individuals tested in the province.

Bohol used to depend on laboratories in Metro Cebu for COVID-19 testing which forced the province to wait for more than a week for the issuance of results due to the high volume of samples tested in the metropolitan.