Establish Medical Laboratory Science Council - Laboratory scientists appeal to Parliament

The Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) has appealed to Parliament to enact a legislation for the establishment of a Medical Laboratory Science Council to ensure proper professional regulation of its members.

The council, it said, would also ensure effective regulation of the services being provided by the members of the association to enhance their contribution to quality health care delivery across the country.

The President of the GAMLS, Dr Abu Abudu Rahamani, who made the call when the executive of the association paid a courtesy call on the Speaker, Mr Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin, in office in Accra, also called on Parliament and other stakeholders to help in the establishment of postgraduate fellowship college for medical laboratory scientists in Ghana.

“If you take the health sector, we are one of the professions with the highest numbers because we have laboratory assistants, technical officers, scientists and doctors of medical laboratory science professionals and we believe that when we have the opportunity to get our own council, it will help in regulating the profession and put the profession in the light that it requires to help the Ghanaian population,” Dr Rahamani said.

Postgraduate college

“We can all bear witness that for the practice of medical laboratory scientists, the highest you can get to is the college system. Even though we have the West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science, we believe that having our own in the country will help to strengthen medical laboratory science practice,” he said.

The call was to congratulate Mr Bagbin on his election as the Speaker and also hold discussion on matters affecting the association and its members.

Dr Rahamani said members of the association were part of the Allied Health Professions Council which regulated medical laboratory scientists.

He, however, said the sheer large numbers of the members of the association required that a law be passed to set up the Medical Laboratory Science Council to effectively regulate the profession and services offered by its members.

He expressed worry that members of the association were classified as “orphans” of the health sector as they were often not properly represented on most committees set up to seek the interest of health professionals.

“But you bear with me that nobody speaks for anybody better than that person. So, I will appeal to the Speaker and Parliament that whenever there is representation on committees, no profession represents the medical laboratory scientists better than they themselves,” he told the Speaker.

Dr Rahamani said to bolster the morale of members of the GAMLS to contribute their quota to quality healthcare delivery in Ghana, there was the need to support the proper placement and remuneration of graduates of doctors of medical laboratory science professionals to motivate them to give off their best.