GAMBLS calls for support to hospital laboratories

The Ghana Association of Biochemical Laboratory Scientists (GAMBLS), has called on the Ministry of Health, to resource all public hospital laboratories, to provide early diagnostics of diseases.

The Association believes that the provision of management and surveillance to the National and various Regional Public Health Reference Laboratories, will ensure the early detection of epidemics prone diseases like Cholera.

The call is contained in a communiqué issued and signed by Thomas Kwabena Gyampomah, President of GAMBLS, at the end of the 2014 Annual National Congress, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

The communiqué said the Ministry of Health and its affiliate agencies and institutions, including the Ghana Health Service, the Teaching Hospitals, CHAG, Universities and Security Health institutions, would re-dedicate themselves to the employment of qualified and licensed medical laboratory professionals.

It said, the National Insurance Authority (NHIA), must, as a matter of urgency, de-bundle Medical laboratory services and pay fee-for-service to make funds available for the development, promotion and availability of uninterrupted quality laboratory services across the country.

The communiqué urged government to upgrade and build the capacity of the National Public Health Reference Laboratories in Kole-Bu, Kumasi and Tamale to the status of biosafety levels three/four laboratories, to be able to adequately and safely handle epidemic prone infectious diseases, and deadly viruses like Ebola.

The Annual National Congress was under the prominent chairmanship of Daasebre Kwebu Ewusi the Seventh, President of the Central Regional House of Chiefs, to deliberate on issues of national interest, and also to obtain updates on current state of professional practice and governance of the Medical Laboratory profession in Ghana.

It had “Medical Laboratories Are Vital,” as its theme.