Experts Decry State Of Nigeria's Medical Laboratories

Advise Nigerians Against Self-MedicationSOME experts on Thursday took a critical look at the state of medical laboratories in the country and declared that they not only fall short of the standards, but contributed to the rot in the nation's health system.The experts, who spoke in Lagos at a workshop organized by Pathcare Laboratory Limited, urged the stakeholders to urgently take steps to redress the situation.Chairman of the Lagos State Blood Transfusion Service and Chairman of Pathcare Laboratory Limited, Prof. Ibironke Akinsete, lamented the state of most laboratories which she said were in pitiable conditions.Akinsete, who is the pioneer chairman of the National AIDS Control Council (NACA), explained that laboratory misdiagnosis is a major challenge in tackling the challenge of Human Immuno-deficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) as wrong diagnosis has resulted to a situation where people without the syndrome were wrongly treated.'When we were in NACA, we went round the country. We could not believe our eyes when we were seeing some laboratories sited in mushroom areas, churning out funny results. Some people without HIV were misdiagnosed and placed on treatment, only to be found HIV negative several months later,' she said.President of the Nigerian Infection Control Association (NICA) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Lagos University College of Medicine, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, explained that Nigerians have refused to appreciate the fact that quality diagnosis precedes quality healthcare system.Ogunsola said this has resulted in self-medications, inadequate funding for the sub-sector by health policy makers, high cost of treatment, prolonged treatment and high mortality.She advised Nigerians to desist from self-medication as it is not only capable of ruinning their health, but limits how far healthcare system can take care of them.Ogunsola, who bemoaned the state of the nation's laboratory medicine, called for revamping of the practice to save the nation from impeding dangers.'There is high level of self- medication in Nigeria because people no longer trust laboratories and thinks test are too expensive. So, they want to save cost. But they do not know that they are actually escalating the cost of the treatment through self-medication.'When a patient self-medicates before coming for a test, the patient has reduced by 20 per cent how far we can help him in the laboratory because drugs often alter the state of diseases, thereby making it almost impossible for tests to detect them,' she said.
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