{"id":2124,"date":"2020-09-30T11:20:09","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T11:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/?p=2124"},"modified":"2020-09-30T11:17:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T11:17:46","slug":"the-toad-likes-water-but-not-when-the-water-is-boiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/30\/the-toad-likes-water-but-not-when-the-water-is-boiling\/","title":{"rendered":"The toad likes water, but not when the water is boiling …"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Since the leadership of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has decided not to exercise decorum and disrespect my profession once again as they have done strongly behind the scenes for several years, I will not hesitate to expose their motives which have been hidden from political leaders and populace all this while.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, my respect goes to all the doctors\/specialists who do not agree with the professional bullying and respect the key role the medical laboratory professional plays in the healthcare delivery system. I know that though we all swore to make saving lives our priority, some see each patient as an item\/commodity to make money hence have sought to control\/manipulate the entire administrative system from the facility level to their advantage.<\/p>\n

I would’ve loved to go straight and use medical jargon and phrases to respond to this communique (attached) full of misrepresentations but in order for you all to understand what’s going on, I will try to make my submission very understandable. The leadership of GMA knows the truth but their passion to keep adding to their past web of lies against us to prevent those at the helm of affairs make a meaningful deduction, their motive won’t allow them to admit their error.<\/p>\n

The medical profession is such that, specialization or academic advancement for all professionals is key in unraveling the mystery behind complicated disease conditions and emerging diseases of public\/global health concern. The majors of medical laboratory science and medicine at the first-degree level differs. We major in clinical microbiology, hematology, chemical pathology, and histopathology at that level. The professional development of my profession that plays a direct role in patient diagnosis revolves around these four majors. Though we study physiology, anatomy, and pharmacology too, they are not majors that can translate the role of the laboratory in the professional field to be clinicians or pharmacists. Some of us who choose to go into academia can major in these “minor” courses at Mphil or Ph.D. level but for the professional route in relation to clinical laboratory practice and diseases surveillance the four majors and other medical research-based professions such as public health must be pursued.<\/p>\n

For years, all the other medical professions have a clear policy that streamlines their practice, protects invasion of quacks, and guides them on the medico-legal aspect of their practice but we do not. We don’t, because, for an inexplicable reason, unseen hands have been able to manipulate the executive and prevent them from implementing the necessary policies. This is because the strengthening of public health laboratory practice will affect their exploitative position which is more of a financial interest than the life of a patient.<\/p>\n

It may interest you to know that physicians have been trained at their college to graduate and come to govern medical laboratory professionals as departmental heads and not as technical staff while we have professionals with qualifications at Master and Ph.D. levels. They claim it has become necessary to do so because there is a knowledge gap between laboratorians and their colleague physicians with respect to the interpretation of results. This perception is false because though the system discourages further training, my people have managed to acquire Mphil and PhDs in our field who are in higher positions to do interpretation if allowed in the GHS. No laboratory physician can interpret laboratory results better than a BSc holder in medical laboratory science with years of experience. In any case, their relevance could be felt in a collaborative manner than seeking to govern and dominate the practice of medical laboratory science. Laboratory professionals welcome anyone who has adequate training to understand the diagnosis of a disease condition based on understanding in tests carried out in the major disciplines of our practice.<\/p>\n

What baffles me is why the nation is crying out for an increase in the numbers of specialists in medicine (urologist, family medicine, oncologists, surgeons, gynecologist, pediatricians, endocrinologist, bone specialist, etc) yet some of these general practitioners think majoring in laboratory science where professionals are adequately developed is important enough in our healthcare delivery system. Unfortunately, the employer thinks this is what is best for the nation without recourse to the physician: patient ratio.<\/p>\n

The national health laboratory policy wasn’t drafted by us only, rather all healthcare stakeholders and funded by CDC at a cost of $ 1 million under the authority of the former health minister, Hon. Sherry Ayittey. So I ask you who lacks understanding of these issues, what aspect of the policy affects your routine practice? How can the president of GMA label my leadership as lacking understanding? For many years of your people representing the labs, what innovation have you brought in laboratory practice which makes the populace have affordable yet quality services? If there is anybody to be blamed for the reason many cannot afford laboratory diagnosis all fingers turn at you.<\/p>\n

Well, we will not allow you to destroy the diagnostic practices with your mere quest to rule and control revenues generated. If you want to work in the laboratory ensure your practical knowledge is equivalent to that of theoretical and technical too instead of paving strange routes to come in and control us. If you think we as medical lab scientists will watch this happen unconcerned then you are greatly mistaken.<\/p>\n

This is just part one, part two will further throw light on how the public health sector is consciously being exploited for personal gains. Watch this space.<\/p>\n

I urge all medical laboratory professionals to remain calm and treat this communique as irrelevant to our objectives. Everything we are asking from MOH and the executive arm of government is legitimate and we will pursue it against all odds.<\/p>\n

Written by: Benedicta Mallet<\/a>, a proud Medical Laboratory Scientist<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the leadership of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has decided not to exercise decorum and disrespect my profession once again as they have done strongly behind the scenes for several years, I will not hesitate to expose their motives which have been hidden from political leaders and populace all this while. First and foremost, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[125,85,122,120,124,126,123,109,121],"class_list":["post-2124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional","tag-doctor","tag-gamls","tag-gma","tag-legal","tag-medical-laboratory-scientist","tag-patient","tag-physician","tag-policy","tag-tuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2131,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions\/2131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}