Nigerians have been urged to demand accurate and reliable test results as a right from medical laboratories in the country.

Speaking in Abuja recently, at the Induction of fresh graduands of the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, MLSCN, the Registrar/CEO, Prof. Anthony Emeribe lamented the dangers of inaccurate laboratory tests saying it could lead to death of a patient.

Emeribe enjoined Nigerians to desist from walking into any facility and submitting themselves for investigation without asking whether the lab is approved or the personnel licensed to perform such important medical investigations is qualified.

“We must all accept responsibility for our health and this includes demanding our medical results as a right from the facility we submit ourselves for medical investigations.

There is also the need to have first hand information about whether the facility is duly approved by the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, if it is manned by the right calibre of personnel, if it has the quality equipment, regents, kits, chemicals and consumables otherwise known as in-vitro diagnostics. That will go a long way in ensuring that the results emanating from such a facility can be relied upon,” he noted.

Emeribe regretted the practice of patronising any facility no matter how awkward-looking, dirty and ill-equipped, simply because there is a signboard announcing that it is a “computerised laboratory”.

He stated that as part of measures to sanitise the sector, a National Taskforce on Laboratory and In-vitro Diagnostics Inspection made up of representatives of all the relevant security and regulatory agencies mandated to ensure compliance and flush out undesirable elements whose nefarious activities are hurting innocent citizens.

“It can no longer be business as usual in the medical laboratory services sector as we are determined to do whatever is required to ensure that only approved facilities with the right calibre of personnel, equipment and kits or consumables continue to function. Facilities which have nothing to hide are often eager to get due approval and are also quick to display evidence of such for their patients to see unlike those, which should not be there in the first place.” he stated