About 70 percent of laboratory staff at government and mission hospitals is unqualified, a Ministry of Health (MOH) survey of 205 facilities has revealed.
The survey also established that there is no health laboratory system in Ghana today that has the requisite skilled manpower and equipment for monitoring the progress of HIV/AIDS treatment on patients. The National President of the Association of Ghana Medical Laboratory Scientists, Mr David Tete-Donkor disclosed this at the association's 3rd national delegates congress at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. The congress was under the theme: "Bio-medical sciences - the key to the diagnosis of communicable and non-communicable diseases."
Mr Tete-Donkor said current structures, especially in the health laboratory system has to be radically transformed to meet new challenges, if Ghana means business in its health delivery system. He said a good laboratory set up alone can not produce an efficient health care delivery system until users are well educated about their appropriateness and effective use.
In a message read on his behalf by the Acting Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Kyei Faried, the Deputy Minister of Health, Mr Moses Dani-Baah said the MOH has been inundated with public complaints of wrongful diagnosis and misinterpretation of laboratory results. He also expressed concern about the continued loss of Ghana Health Services laboratory staff to NGOs, private practice and to neighbouring countries.
Mr Dani-Baah said government is outlining a mechanism to check the anomalies. One of such measures is the multi-purpose institutional and in-service training currently being held for laboratory staff to enable them to sharpen their skills in diagnosis and case management.
