Demand for accurate medical laboratory test – MLSCN Boss

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja during the Induction of graduands of the Medical Laboratory Science Council recently the registrar noted that accurate and reliable test results helps to  save the life of the patient.He added that inaccurate results could lead to death. Emeribe warned citizens to desist from walking into any facility and submitting themselves […]

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja during the Induction of graduands of the Medical Laboratory Science Council recently the registrar noted that accurate and reliable test results helps to  save the life of the patient.
He added that inaccurate results could lead to death.
Emeribe warned citizens to desist from walking into any facility and submitting themselves for investigation without asking questions as to whether the lab is approved or whether the personnel are licensed to perform such important investigations.
“We must all accept responsibility for our health and this includes demanding as of right, that the facility to which we are submitting ourselves is duly approved by the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, that it is manned by the right calibre of personnel, and that it has the quality equipment, regents, kits, chemicals and consumables otherwise known as in-vitro diagnostics”.
That will go a long way in ensuring that the results emanating from such a facility can be relied upon, he noted.
Emeribe regretted that some patients, including the educated and well-off in the society, still continue to walk into any facility no matter how awkward-looking, how dirty and ill-equipped, simply because there is a signboard announcing that it is a “computerized laboratory”.
He noted that, “the quack medical laboratory scientist would not continue to operate once he starts receiving probing questions regarding the facility”. He said the law of supply and demand also applies in the delivery of medical laboratory services to the extent that the patients through their insistence on getting quality lab results can make the practice lucrative for the conscientious practitioners while helping to weed out the quacks and unserious by turning their back on such people.
As part of the measures to sanitize the medical laboratory services sector, Emeribe said MLSCN had put in place a National Taskforce on Laboratory and In-vitro Diagnostics Inspection made up of representatives of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Army, Nigeria Air Force, Association of General Medical Practitioners, Guild of Medical Lab Directors and so on.