The President in his address to the nation on 5th April,2020 stated that, "…it is the results of these tests ( over 15,000 samples from contact tracing) that will determine our future course of action."

Reliance on testing has clinical precedence - scarcely any decision in medicine is made without Laboratory tests.

It must be noted that the only health professionals that can detect with certainty whether or not a suspected person has COVID-19 is the MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENTIST.

This indicates that the Medical Laboratory and the Medical Laboratory Scientist play an integral role in shaping the Healthcare system of the country.

Unfortunately in Ghana, there are no acceptable standards by which every clinical Laboratory should operate and this led to the development of a policy document to solve this problem.

The document (GHANA NATIONAL LABORATORY POLICY ) which was developed with Ghanaian and International experts since 2013 is on their shelves of the MOH, Ghana gathering dust thereby denying the Ghanaian people the privilege of enjoying good health services

It is anticipated that the policy will put in place a framework for the structured development and professional growth of the laboratory system in Ghana in the areas of
✓Organisation and coordination ; To establish the Directorate of Health Laboratory Services at the MOH to provide administrative and technical oversight of Laboratory services across all agencies and the private sector
✓Human Resources
✓Laboratory testing ✓Equipment ,Reagents and consumables
✓Infrastructure
✓Quality Management System
✓Global Health Security Agenda
✓Laboratory Information System
✓ Research and Network
✓Monitoring and Evaluation
✓ Financing Laboratory Services

This is why THE GHANA NATIONAL LABORATORY POLICY must be implemented NOW!!!
#ImplementTheGhanaNationalLaboratoryPolicyNow# #Medical laboratory scientist#