Nigerian private medical laboratories are underutilised - Guild of medical laboratory directors

The Guild of Medical Laboratory Directors (GMLD) of Nigeria has disclosed that the Nigerian Private Medical Laboratories even as they possess the installed capacity, have grossly remained underutilised by the health care system, in addition to the managed-care National Health Insurance Scheme/states Health Insurance Schemes, public health disease management/ surveillance.

In a communiqué released after the end of a 4-day retreat of the new national executive council of the GMLD held at the Falak Grand Hotel, Garki 2, Abuja, the group enjoined the Federal Ministry of Health and the relevant MDAS to leverage and optimise the available capacity provided.

The Guild of medical laboratory directors is made up of medical laboratory scientists in the private (non-government) prac t i c e . It compr i s es private stand-alone medical laboratory directors/managers, in- hospital, lab owners/ managers/ practitioners, owners and marketers of invitro devices, practitioners in nongovernmental organisations (NGOS) and the academia.

In the communiqué was signed by Elochukwu Adibo, the national president of GMLD, Nigeria; Samuel Oludare, national secretary-general and Aminu Suleiman, national vice president North West, the NEC also said that with the success stories recorded by the engagement of private laboratory sector in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) so far, the federal ministry of health and implementing partners should expand the deployment of more Genexpert machines to private laboratories across the country and also involve GMLD in the implementation of other disease specific programmescommunicable (malaria and HIV) and non-communicable as well as support training and implementation of laboratory quality management system.

For the national external quality assessment scheme, it resolved that “GMLD laboratories will continue to participate in proficiency testing/ external quality assessment scheme in Nigeria in collaboration with the National External Quality Assessment Laboratory ( NEQAL) to improve the quality of laboratory results.”

It also added that the National Malaria Elimination Programme should collaborate strongly with GMLD in relevant aspects of malaria elimination programme, espec i a l ly diagnosis.