Conflicting priorities in the laboratory (Ebola mission)

You have just deployed to a lab that provides diagnostic laboratory services for two Ebola treatment units in a low-income country: one run by the military and one run by an NGO. The former is reserved for international (predominantly) and local healthcare workers and the latter serves the general population, but has a high proportion of child patients. You are told that you should always prioritise the providing of test results to the former, military-run unit.

Normally (back in the UK and on other deployments) you are guided by the principle that results should be provided according to how urgently they are needed, and this is determined by the extent to which significant treatment decisions depend on the information they provide. During quieter times, you are told, it is possible to 'batch' samples from both units so that results are available more or less simultaneously.

However, when you arrive both units are busy and you receive a sample from a very poorly child that is clearly urgent and the 'prioritised' batch from the military-run unit is full but contains some less urgent samples.