Standards Board calls for close collaboration with MoH — To check private labs

THE Ghana Standard Board (GSB) has called for collaboration from the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to assess the operations of medical laboratories in the country to ensure standards.
The Head of Marketing and Public Relations of the board, Mr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako, in an interview in Accra, said although the board was well equipped to carry out calibration of the various equipment used by laboratories, it could not do that without permission from the health sector.
“The standard promotes a common approach to the quality management of medical laboratories and all aspects of its operation, from patient preparation and identification to the collection and examination of clinical samples,” he pointed out.
Mr Amponsah-Bediako was reacting to a Daily Graphic story about the absence of a law to enforce guidelines, standards and codes of practice to regulate private medical laboratories in the country.
The Association of Private Medical Laboratories (APML) had warned of the possibility of widespread wrong diagnosis of diseases, hence wrong treatment that would lead to avoidable deaths.
That dangerous trend, according to the immediate past president of the association, Mr Otuo Adade-Boateng, was due to the absence of a law to enforce guidelines, standards and codes of practice to regulate private medical laboratories in the country.
Commenting on the situation, Mr Amponsah-Bediako said there were standards in the delivery of excellent medical laboratory services in Ghana, but the issue was that they were not being adhered to since no institution monitored operations of those laboratories.
He said laboratories in Ghana, like elsewhere, were expected to meet the requirements for quality and competence prescribed by the International Standard (ISO 15189:2007) under Medical Laboratories Particular Requirements for Quality and Competence and called for an immediate decision on the issue.
He reiterated the fact that the possibility of wrong diagnosis of diseases and treatment due to non-compliance of medical laboratories with the requirements for quality and competence of testing and calibration was real.
That, Mr Amponsah-Bediako said, was because diagnosis based on “false negative result and false positive result” could lead to wrong prescription of drugs, which could lead to loss of income, emotional stress or even death.
He stated that medical laboratories formed indispensable part of the health care service of every country.
“The absence or lack of quality in their test results severely hampers the ability of physicians to accurately diagnose and treat patients,” he stressed.
He observed that lack of control in the sector had over the years resulted in the proliferation of private medical laboratories in the country.
He said that medical laboratory professionals were not subject to any form of regulation or control in their practice, an issue which needs to be addressed.
Mr Amponsah-Bediako said to get the best out of medical laboratories, there was the need for personnel with the requisite know-how to inspect the available facilities and how they were being managed.
He explained that a laboratory could have the best equipment but could perform abysmally, if the equipment was not being managed by competent staff who underwent regular training to upgrade their skills.
Touching on the safety of some of the laboratories, he pointed out the way samples were handled was not the best and added that the environment in which some of them operated did not make their activities safe.
Touching on the operations of the GSB, the Head of Marketing and Public Relations said the board was equipped to carry out a lot of tests which included those on medical equipment such as those for testing of blood pressure and temperature, as well as those used in laboratories to ensure that standards were followed to protect lives.