Management deliberately made Tamale Hosp. Lab non-functional – Staff

Staff of the Tamale Teaching Hospital Laboratory are accusing management of the health facility of deliberately rendering the unit non-functional in order to have a reason to outsource it to a private entity.

According to the health workers, they have evidence to back their claim that the laboratory was generating money for the hospital despite the challenges confronting it. However, because management wants to outsource it to a private entity, it has deliberately refused to address the challenges confronting the health center.

Among the challenges, they argued, are non-provision of reagents and broken down equipment, stressing that the laboratory would have functioned properly and generate the expected revenue if Management had made financial commitments to resolve the problems confronting it.

“Management is directly responsible for buying reagents and financially facilitating the repair of broken down equipment. Unfortunately, management has failed to resource the laboratory so that the laboratory would underperform, so management would have reason to bring in a private individual”, the noted in a statement released Wednesday.

Below is the full statement:

To: The Chief Executive Officer, Tamale Teaching Hospital

From: Laboratory Staff

Date: 6th April, 2016.

Subject: Protest against management’s decision to outsource some laboratory services

Dear Sir,

We, the staff of the Tamale Teaching Hospital Laboratory with the support of sister Associations in the health sector wish to state unequivocally that we do not agree with management’s decision to outsource some laboratory services to a private individual because there are no justifiable reasons for embarking on such an arrangement.

The laboratory is not solely responsible for its inability to function properly. We have ample evidence to show that the laboratory has been working and generating money for the hospital despite the challenges. Management is directly responsible for buying reagents and financially facilitating the repair of broken down equipment. Unfortunately, management has failed to resource the laboratory so that the laboratory would underperform, so management would have reason to bring in a private individual.

In order to improve efficiency and easily monitor performance of the various departments, the hospital introduced a software called Hospital Administration and Management Systems (HAMS), which tracks the input and output of every department. Sadly, three years down the line, the laboratory is the only department that has not been migrated unto HAMS thus the output of the laboratory is not realized.

Management has failed to show the direction and leadership needed for the laboratory to function properly. The laboratory is not the only department in the hospital that is not performing to expectation. All the departments of the hospital have been underperforming because they are ill-resourced by management. Besides, outsourcing some laboratory services to a private individual would mean patients have to pay more to access health care.

As a teaching hospital laboratory, teaching of students from health training institutions is one of our core mandates, when services are outsourced to a private individual, students would be denied the opportunity to learn how to perform some of these tests. The staff of the laboratory may also become redundant. As Government expands our hospital, more staff would have to be employed to deliver various services, not render the already existing staff redundant.

The laboratory has also been marginalized in decision making processes. Even the decision to outsource some laboratory services was never discussed with the staff of the laboratory, until we saw the advertisement in the Daily Graphic, March 3 edition (page 84) and wrote to management requesting for a meeting. It is frustrating to note that even when we requested a meeting with management in order to amicably discuss the issues, only the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Director of Medical Affairs (DMA) and the Deputy Director of Administration (DDA) attended. Surprisingly, the Directors of Administration, Finance, Pharmacy and Nursing services were present in the hospital but did not attend. We believe that management has acted in bad faith by deliberately giving the laboratory a bad name and now attempting to outsource its services.

Our meeting with CEO, DMA and DDA ended in deadlock with no tangible reasons given for outsourcing some of our laboratory services. At the meeting, the CEO told us that, the hematology unit is not on the outsourcing list because of an initiative he piloted with the hematology unit. He bought a new full blood count (FBC) machine and reagents for the unit. Because of this, the unit generated a lot of money for the hospital. This leaves us wondering why, the CEO could not replicate this successfully piloted initiative in other units of the laboratory. The main problems of the laboratory are inconsistent supply of reagents, lack of periodic servicing of analyzers and delayed repairs of broken down equipment. We are making a demand on management to set aside a revolving fund managed by a dedicated accountant, with an auditor, procurement officer under the supervision of the Head of Laboratory to address the above issues adequately.

We are therefore by this letter, giving management seventy two (72) hours (from the time of receipt) to communicate to us in writing, that management has rescinded its decision to outsource some laboratory services. If management fails to communicate to us in writing within seventy two (72) hours, we would do everything possible within the limits of the law to put a stop to this intended arrangement which we believe is not in the best interest of the stake holders. We cherish our clients and the services we deliver to them. We will therefore not allow anyone to compromise our professional integrity.

Thank you