The Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA), has been explaining who can head a basic laboratory in a health facility in Ghana and why tertiary or secondary laboratories should be headed by a laboratory medicine specialist or a licensed biomedical scientist.

According to HeFRA, a basic lab can be headed by a licensed medical laboratory technician in good standing with the Allied Health Professional Council.

HeFRA, which is the appropriate agency to determine healthcare institutions' human resource requirements and leadership, however, emphasizes that it is the duty of leadership of heath care facilities to appoint who should be the supervisor of a laboratory and other unit.

According to HeFRA, per the Act establishing it, it has determined that basic laboratories should be headed by a licensed medical laboratory technician in good standing with the Allied Health Professional Council.

Apart from that, primary, secondary and tertiary laboratories are to be headed by either a laboratory medicine specialist or a licensed biomedical scientist.

In a response to a letter the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) sent to HeFRA regarding regulation of laboratory space in health facilities in the wake of the nationwide strike by lab scientists, HeFRA emphasized that “it is the leadership of heath care facilities to appoint who should be the supervisor of a laboratory and other unit.”

HeFRA’s letter dated May 31, 2021, signed by its Registrar, Dr Philip A, Bannor, a copy of which has been seen by Graphic Online stated: “I wish to inform you that the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency, HeFRA, has taken a keen interest in the complaint regarding the unilateral position of some of the laboratory scientists and workers at the healthcare institutions across the nation and, more recently, at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital Medical Laboratories.”

“I understand from the complaint that the leadership of the medical laboratories has refused the appointments of two Medical Laboratory specialists (hematologists) to work in the laboratories at the hospital."

Members of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) branch of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) last week escalated their strike to a full-blown one and decided to stay away from work until their issues were resolved.

Their argument is that, they want management to remove two physicians recently appointed to the Haematology Department from post.

They are of the belief that the appointment of the two medical officers to the department was an intrusion into the profession of the medical laboratory technicians which, according to them, was regulated by law.

The KATH lab scientists started their strike on May 21, 2021.

Read also: Lab Scientists embark on nationwide strike

In solidarity with their members at KATH, the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) joined to go on an indefinite nationwide strike on May 26, 2021.

An attempt by the Ministry of Health to get the lab scientists to resume work has proved futile and an interlocutory injunction secured by the National Labour Commission from the High Court has also been defied by the workers.

Parliamentary meeting

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Health has taken note of the development and the plight of patients, particularly those who require laboratory tests and have been left stranded and has therefore decided to intervene.

A meeting has therefore been scheduled for Tuesday, June 1 at 1:30pm at Parliament House to hold discussions on the matter with officials of the Ministry of Health, the National Labour Commission, the management and representatives of the teaching hospitals, the GMA, GAMLS, Society of Medical Laboratory Managers Ghana, HeFRA, Allied Health Professional Council and the College of Physicians and Surgeons.