Bitter rivalry in our laboratories?
Less than two months after the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) suspended its industrial action that crippled quality health care delivery, an internal action, likely to undermine efficient health care delivery is rearing its head.
A disagreement between biomedical laboratory scientists and the Laboratory Medicine Faculty of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS) over leadership and supervisory roles in existence since 2010 has now created a tense atmosphere between the two bodies, such that, instead of playing complementary roles to enhance quality health care, the two see each other as bitter rivals.
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At its third National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Accra on August 14, 2015, the Ghana Association of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists (GABMLS) signalled its intention to embark on a sit-down strike if stakeholders failed to address the leadership crisis affecting their operations.
Communique
In a communiqué issued, GABMLS noted among others, “There are deliberate attempts by the Ghana Laboratory Medicine Faculty of the GCPS to infiltrate and capture the management of medical laboratories in Ghana.”
“Currently, there are attempts at the Korle-Bu and Komfo Anokye Teaching hospitals to remove highly qualified medical laboratory scientists as heads and replace them with medical doctors of the GCPS.”
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the president of the GABMLS, Mr Thomas Kwabena Gyampomah, explained that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Standard Organization (ISO) 15189, which Ghana had subscribed to, indicated that “medical laboratories should only be headed by qualified Medical Laboratory Scientists”.
“We are being pushed too much to the wall, and very soon we will react forcefully. Medical doctors have assumed wrongly that they are heads of all health institutions, but this cannot hold in our case, so in a worst case scenario, we will hand over to laboratory physicians. If they think they belong to the laboratories, then we will withdraw our services for them to show their skills,” he warned.
Document
He said a document sighted by executives of GABMLS proved that the GCPS had trained 250 members, and “intended to use them to topple our members heading the KATH and planting them as heads of laboratories in Ghana.”
“Our position is that our members hold higher qualifications, including managerial skills, so we are capable of effectively and efficiently managing our medical laboratories. It is, therefore, unacceptable for us to be pushed aside in the management of medical laboratories in Ghana. We will resist any attempt by the GCPS to impose medical doctors in our laboratories as heads.”
Policy guidelines
Giving a background to the issue, Mr Gyampomah said it was the absence of policy guidelines that had resulted in this internal wrangling.
“It is on record that in 2010, the Ghana Health Service (GHS), with support from Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Atlanta-USA, formed the Laboratory Technical Committee (LTC) to develop National Health Laboratory Policy and National Health Laboratory Accreditation Policy with a five-year strategic plan document for the implementation of these policies. They were completed, finalised and endorsed by the then Minister for Health, Hanny-Sherry Ayitey, in 2013, but before it could be launched, members of the GCPS waged a campaign to halt it, and all efforts to resolve the issue failed.”
Quoting from section 5 of Act 857 of the Health Professions Regulatory Bodies Act, 2013, Mr Gyampomah said: “A person shall not practice as an allied health practitioner or allied health care provider unless that person (a) is an allied health professional as specified in the schedule and (b) is registered as a practitioner in accordance with this Part.”
He said under this Act, members of the Laboratory Medicine Faculty of the GCPS could not hold themselves as heads of laboratories, because apart from the fact that they were not registered as laboratory scientists, they belonged to one professional body, which prevented them from being registered members of another professional body under the Health Professions Regulatory Bodies.
He said taking over laboratories would marginalise the trained and licensed GABMLS, who were mandated to work in the laboratories. “Their presence will affect quality health care delivery because their knowledge in the resources, logistics and supplies needed for the practice is shallow, so they are not in the position to ensure that the required standards are procured for the practice of laboratory tests at the hospitals to sustain quality health care.”
On the future actions if their signals were ignored, Mr Gyampomah said apart from going to court to seek the interpretation of the relevant laws, the GABMLS would not co-operate with members of the Laboratory Medicine Faculty of the GCPS at the laboratories in any way.
Health Ministry
When contacted, the Director, Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME) of the Ministry of Health, Dr Afisah Zakariah, acknowledged the uneasy calm between the two bodies, but explained that there was a draft policy presented to the ministry by the GABMLS at a time the GCPS had also petitioned the then minister to address their concern.
According to Dr Zakariah, GCPS were medical officers, who had also specialised in laboratory sciences, “so in their petition, they contended that GABMLS did not consider their interest when they drafted the policy guidelines. They were of the view that as biomedical scientists, they are key to the activities of the laboratories, so their interest should have been considered in the draft policy”.
She assured that a policy guideline would be developed to guide operations, while a meeting should be organised to dialogue on any differences between the two bodies.
“I have already contacted the Chief Director to find an amicable way of addressing the issues before it escalates into an industrial action,” she said.
“In the health sector, individuals cannot work alone. Everybody is important, because we play a complementary role in providing quality health care delivery, so there is the need for us to understand each other and work as a team,” she noted.
“It is just a policy document needed to govern their work, so it is important for members of the health sector to respect each other and acknowledge that we are there to serve the people and not engage in any unhealthy rivalry,” she advised.
Incidentally, the GCPS also acknowledged the need for all employees at the health sector to work as a team.
The Faculty Chairperson of the GCPS, Dr Ivy Ekem and the Faculty Secretary, Dr Justina Ansah, told Daily Graphic in an interview that they preferred not responding directly to the issues raised by the GABMLS.
According to Dr Ekem, the issue was under negotiation “so it was out of tune that it suddenly appeared in the media to draw public attention”.
She, however, debunked the notion that Laboratory Physicians did not have the skills to work at the laboratories, saying, “Apart from undertaking post-mortem, they also undertake various tests at the laboratories to enhance quality health care.”
She said it was important for doctors to work with the GABMLS as a team, but said to enhance sanity, there should be a head, hence the ongoing negotiations to streamline things at the laboratories.