We will not agree to doctors supervising our work – Lab Scientists

National Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) says they will resist any attempt by hospital administrators to appoint medical officers to head their departments.

According to them, the GAMLS has a lot of professionals who have risen through the ranks to have undertaken this supervisory role over doctors, as being proposed by the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

The Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) have threatened to go on an indefinite nationwide strike.

The threat is in solidarity with their members at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) who began a one-week sit-down strike last week, following the posting of two medical officers to the Laboratory Services Directorate of the hospital.

Dennis Adu-Gyasi, insists what is happening at KATH is an affront on the practice of medical laboratory science in Ghana.

He disclosed that what KATH is trying to do was attempted by the Korle Bu Teaching hospital in 2016 but, laboratory scientists there resisted “and now they want to do same at KATH”.

Speaking to Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy98.9FM, Dennis said, “we are not going to allow any doctors to oversee our work. We both belong to different associations and they cannot cross over to our territory.”

He claims this is an agenda being pursued by doctors in their own interest “but we will not allow that happen to us. Their ultimate goal is to force medical laboratory scientists under doctors.”

The GAMLS PRO motioned that the doctor-to-patient ratio in the country is already high and that should be treated as a priority. “We don’t need doctors to oversee our work. We are competent enough to do our work diligently.”

He believes every professional is entitled to growth and development in their own fields and charged, “Every professional should be allowed to develop to the apex of their career.”