The Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists is requesting that the government employs more qualified medical laboratory personnel to augment work in laboratories.
According to the Association, despite the financial clearance to employ some 690 staff, there is still a backlog of people that have to be employed to ensure the delivery of quality healthcare.
President of the Association, Dr. Ignatius Awinubuno told Citi News the poor coordination of medical laboratories is a detriment to the country’s healthcare system.
“Healthcare delivery is largely placed on laboratory services where evidence from laboratory data is used to manage these cases. Unfortunately, we have a situation where these services are poorly coordinated and our target for the universal healthcare, health coverage, and sustainable development goals will be missed.
“You rather have qualified personnel sitting at home, and your 2000 qualified personnel are waiting to be employed and they are not being employed. They keep picketing, they keep agitating but they are not being employed.
In 2018, the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) served notice that it will embark on a strike over the government’s failure to address their concerns.
The Association said the strike was a strategy to have their challenges acknowledged by medical superintendents and directors, to ensure that Ghanaians benefit from an effective health care system.
According to the Association over 90 percent of laboratory processes in public health facilities in Ghana are not controlled, and this threatens the quality or accuracy of lab results churned out.
The association blamed this mainly on the lack of supervision and quality control.
The Laboratory Technicians in that same year also embarked on partial withdrawal of their services across the country.
The action was in protest of salary discrepancies that had existed for six years after the introduction of the single spine pay policy.
