{"id":396,"date":"2017-09-28T00:36:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T00:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.wordpress.com\/?p=396"},"modified":"2017-09-28T00:36:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T00:36:31","slug":"are-regulatory-authorities-independent-in-ghana-a-cry-of-a-medical-laboratory-scientist-acts-829-851","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/28\/are-regulatory-authorities-independent-in-ghana-a-cry-of-a-medical-laboratory-scientist-acts-829-851\/","title":{"rendered":"ARE REGULATORY AUTHORITIES INDEPENDENT IN GHANA? A CRY OF A MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENTIST (ACTS 829 &#038; 851)."},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify;\">The independence of regulatory authorities established by the laws of the land is always questionable since they are tied to the apron strings of the government who in most cases have the appointing powers.<br \/>\nThese disarm the authorities in playing the strict and expected fruitful contributions their establishments are to offer the public. This is clearly seen when public institutions are the culprits, flouting legally established instruments.<br \/>\nIn Ghana, most of the medical laboratories in government hospitals (about 80%) have challenges of working in an environment that will enable them to produce reliable and accurate results. And I say this with much pain as a Medical Laboratory Scientist. These range from the reliability of methods used by medical laboratory equipment, quality of reagents and consumables. The quality assurance processes to ensure accurate results are generated, proper medical laboratory infrastructure, appropriate medical laboratory financing, adequate resources to work and many others are not spared. I would want to hold my peace on which facilities make use of unqualified personnel assigned to professional and skillful jobs.<br \/>\nIn my view, one of the solutions to solve the problems and enable medical laboratory service deliveries to be done in a quality assured environment is to implement to the letter applicable laws. Also, it would be required that both public and private agencies respect the laws and allow them to work. It is a challenge when state regulatory agencies are to implement laws in autonomy at places where the government is a culprit. No wonder everyone is calling for a special prosecutor whose powers might not run concurrently with the ruling government but have some level of autonomy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify;\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-457\" src=\"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/09\/image.png\" alt=\"image.png\" width=\"261\" height=\"193\" \/><br \/>\nA cursory look at The Health Institutions and Facility ACT 829, 2011 (PART 1) and the Public Health ACT 851, 2012 (mainly PART 7 &amp; 8) which give pictures of the good facilities Ghanaians are expected to enjoy if the regulatory agencies play their respective roles without fear or favour. The political interventions are too much in my view.<br \/>\nConsidering the functions of the regulatory authorities set up by the laws quoted, the Health Facility Regulatory Agency (HFRA) is to \u201cdetermine the basic and minimum equipment and personnel required for the type of service to be provided in a practice\u201d, while the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) shall \u201censure adequate and effective standards for food, drugs, cosmetics, household chemicals, and medical devices (INCLUDING IN VITRO REAGENTS);\u201d. If these laws are made to work effectively in both public and private facilities, there would not be medical laboratories in this country that would release results for patient management without adequate quality control measures.<br \/>\nIs it the case that much of the infractions occur in government facilities and for that matter, there is confusion on who should be met with the punishment? Or is it the case that the appointing authority to whom these authorities report to, will immediately make transfers if those at the helm of affairs find the balls to bite? Or is it also the case that the lawmakers developed those laws to exempt the government and its institutions? I cannot imagine the findings of an inspection in public medical laboratories by the FDA and HFRA all complying with standards set by the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA).<br \/>\nIf we aspire for medical laboratories to function comparable to international standards, then the laws must be enforced to the letter to get the largest employer (government) complying with what the laws state and equally allow the regulatory agencies to operate freely in autonomy without coercion.<br \/>\n<em>Observations from a legally blind scientist.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-458\" src=\"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/09\/image1.png\" alt=\"image.png\" width=\"285\" height=\"177\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Also published by MedCirclesgh:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/medcirclesgh.com\/how-independent-are-the-regulatory-authorities-of-ghana-a-cry-of-a-medical-laboratory-scientist\/amp\">How independent are the regulatory authorities in Ghana?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The independence of regulatory authorities established by the laws of the land is always questionable since they are tied to the apron strings of the government who in most cases have the appointing powers. These disarm the authorities in playing the strict and expected fruitful contributions their establishments are to offer the public. This is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","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=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}