He made this known at a seminar aimed at sensitising CEOs to the need to have standardised, precision and quality control in medical equipment.

The use of quality medical technology, he said, would not only build trust and confidence in the medical lab results, but also help in the correct treatment of diagnosed cases.

“We can't compromise on our health by using below standard medical technologies, especially regarding precision and quality control.

These sometimes can lead to inaccurate results, and that is going to end people's lives,” he said.

Mr Kenney said many medical facilities lacked precision and quality control in their equipment, so they produced poor results.

He said medical practitioners needed to ensure they bought medical equipment that were verified.

Mr Kenney, therefore, advised the public to be conscious of the kind of test kits they used, and urged them to check if the products were approved by the Food and Drugs Authority.

Sensitisation

The seminar, held in Accra, was organised by Flokefama in partnership with the Mindray, a medical device company.

It was dubbed: “Sustainable healthcare systems: Contribution of quality laboratory diagnosis”.

It brought together health service CEOs, laboratory heads, hospital directors and experts to share their experiences and knowledge of medical technologies and laboratory equipment, and how they were impacting health delivery. 

Commitment

The General Manager of Flokefama, Dav Kenkey, expressed the hope that the event would be expanded to address their needs with regard to medical technologies and equipment.

She said Flokefama was committed to providing quality services and training healthcare practitioners in how to use new and existing equipment in vitro diagnostics and other biomedical devices.

Process

The Chief Programme Director of Allied Health of the Ministry of Health, Dr Ignatius Awinibuno, said for hospitals to gain the trust of clients, health professionals must live up to their work standards and the rules of the profession, and ensure that they used the best of medical equipment.

He entreated laboratory technicians to test medical technologies to ensure they met the needed requirements before putting them to use.

“We must ensure that we subject the equipment to the necessary assessment such as checking issues of stability of the test, precision and the accuracy test to be sure that it is not giving us the wrong results or output.

“We need to test that they meet the legal, safety and technical requirements before we put them to use,” he emphasised.

Dr Awinibuno further said there was the need for a clear policy direction that guided the appropriate use of medical equipment, and indicated that the country should expedite the integration of tele-health into its health system.

He urged medical professionals not to be afraid to introduce technology into their work, saying “technology makes the work easier; you are able to do more tests contained in the workload, able to give results in a shorter time and those results are also likely to be accurate and reliable for the sake of the public”.