{"id":745,"date":"2017-10-14T14:06:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-14T14:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.wordpress.com\/?p=745"},"modified":"2017-10-14T14:06:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-14T14:06:39","slug":"sharing-in-the-opinion-of-a-columnist-on-medical-errors-and-malpractices-in-ghana-whos-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/14\/sharing-in-the-opinion-of-a-columnist-on-medical-errors-and-malpractices-in-ghana-whos-to-blame\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing in the opinion of a columnist on “Medical errors and malpractices in Ghana: Who\u2019s to blame?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would like to share some opinions on an article that articulates rationally the professional views that I hold on needed standards for quality and safety with competence, published on the 29th of March 2016 by GhanaWeb\u00a0(Story from a columnist from Citifmonline.com on GhanaWeb).<\/a><\/p>\n

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In the laws of Ghana for the establishment of professional bodies (NRCD 143), each profession MUST be represented by a body registered to see to the ethical conduct of a particular profession in the country. The practice of law is seen by the professional body, “Ghana Bar Association”, medical doctors are with the Ghana Medical Association, teachers are with the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) while medical laboratory professionals are with the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) with the registration number Professional Body 2 (PB 2). Mind you, these are not just associations as people are usually dazed\u00a0from the name (a whole exposition is needed some other\u00a0time).<\/p>\n

In concentrating on the practice of medical laboratory science in Ghana vis-a-vis the lamentations of the columnist, I would want to say that the cry for standards over the years yielded the adoption of the ISO 15189:2012 by the Ghana Standards Authority for Ghana (Ghana Standard Authority launches GS ISO 15189:2017 for Ghana).<\/a><\/p>\n

With such adoption, regulatory bodies like the Food and Drugs Authority\u00a0(FDA) empowered by the Public Health Act 851, the Health Facility Regulatory Agency (HFRA) empowered by ACT 829 and the Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC) empowered by ACT 857, PART 1, would all have standard guidelines to measure what is expected in our health facilities. What needs to be done for improvement are all captured and most especially who qualifies to perform in our medical laboratories in Ghana. With the document (GS ISO 15189:2017), QUALITY and COMPETENCE is key.<\/p>\n

What is left is for the authorities to enforce the laws and the standards even when the government who pays them is the culprit.<\/p>\n

As outlined by the columnist, “…, diagnosis due to incorrect lab test requests, poor lab results\u00a0…” do occur, when these standards adopted by the GSA together with other existing legal documents are used to the letter, we can have improvements comparable to what pertains to other internationally recognized health system. I have personally seen a fibroma which was formed around a gauze during a gross tissue examination for histology. This obviously might have happened from a previous procedure to remove a breast lump from the patient.<\/p>\n

From the use of unqualified professionals to avoid paying rational wages and the system not ready to institute policies that will affect the quality and safety needed in our health facilities, the larger employer is to blame.<\/p>\n

Where do we have high school leavers’ trained to serve as the phlebotomist, lab assistants, and surgical assistants as quizzed by the columnist? Largely in our public health facilities? And who is paying these people? Definitely the maker and implementer of our laws.<\/p>\n

Till the independence of our regulatory bodies is made sacred, the cry for quality, safety, and competency in our health facilities will always fall on deaf ears.<\/p>\n

Is it not surprising that, the USA government, seeing the need for delivery of quality medical laboratory services in Ghana invested over one million US dollars ($ 1,000,000.00) to develop a Laboratory Policy and the nation is stalling its launch and implementation because of governance? If competency remains key in getting our health systems work, then the independence of professionals needs to be respected and every profession must be allowed to grow to expected levels internationally.<\/p>\n

Ghana needs to learn from those who have taken the leap in quality, safety, and competency in health delivery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would like to share some opinions on an article that articulates rationally the professional views that I hold on needed standards for quality and safety with competence, published on the 29th of March 2016 by GhanaWeb\u00a0(Story from a columnist from Citifmonline.com on GhanaWeb). In the laws of Ghana for the establishment of professional bodies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","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=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}