Association Wants SOP Uniformity In Labs

L-R: Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale, representative of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr Femi Majekodunmi, Facilitator, Chief Abiola Ogundokun and a guest lecturer, Dr Comfort Momoh, during a summit on Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation organised for Circumcision Descendants Assocaition of Nigeria in Ibadan on Monday.

Medical laboratory
Scientists have called for uniformity in the Standard Operative Procedures (SOP) in laboratories across the nation for a proper diagnosis and treatment of ailments.
This was one of the fallouts of the 194th National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) in Markurdi, recently.
The National President of the Association, Alhaji Toyosi Raheem, noted that the result of test was supposed to be uniform regretting however, that the reverse had been the case with most laboratories in the country.
Raheem said, “under normal circumstances, the result of any given test is supposed to be the same worldwide if all Standard Operative Procedures are followed but it is always not so, here. Government must urgently intervene in this regard to save human lives as this is the brain box of medical sciences”.
In a communique issued at the end of the meeting, the association’s president, decried the existence of many unequipped laboratories adding that their state has caused a major set back in the nation’s medical practice.
“Most laboratories including government ones are not equipped. They lack structures and staff. It is sad to note that our public laboratories are grossly neglected and under-budgeted for. We strongly condemned the situation where quacks are employed as medical laboratory scientists. This affects the effective diagnosis and treatment of our patients nationwide”, he said.
The communiqué stated that the issue of quackery and lack of equipment had caused different laboratories to produce different results for one test adding that this has resulted to the difficulty in the treatment of such ailment.
The communiqué however, commended union members for professionally fighting the recent emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases such Ebola and Lassa fever saying, “the fight was won in spite of the gross lack of essential diagnostic equipment and conducive working environment in most laboratories.
It further called on all members never to let down the gauntlet in the regard but press further in detecting early  warning signs of diseases towards combating them.

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