These are tough times for the lab professionals in Nigeria. The Medical and Clinical Laboratory Scientists Council of Nigeria has shut a total of 180 out of the 350 medical laboratories in the country. Here is the link to the story and below is an excerpt from it (boldface emphasis mine):
The Registrar of the council, Elizabeth Uzechukwu... said the laboratories were shut for failing to comply with the regulations. She also cited unethical practice and poor infrastructure. The inspection exercise, according to Uzechukwu, was aimed at sanitising the practice of medical scientists in the country and wrest it from quacks. She said of the 50 laboratories inspected in Edo State, 36 were shut for failing to meet standards....In Oyo State, she disclosed, some laboratories were discovered to be using coolers as blood banks.“You cannot maintain temperature with ice blocks and for that, the laboratories were shut down,” she said. She added some laboratory fled to evade the inspection team. Uzechukwu disclosed that 16 of the 39 laboratories that were accessible for inspection were closed down while the run-away proprietors were later apprehended and handed over to law enforcement agencies.
Lots of good lessons can be gleaned from this report. No one would argue about the need to "sanitise" the practice of medical scientists but I am not exactly sure what this means. Secondly, there is no excuse for confusing a blood bank refrigerator with a soft drink cooler. Last but not least and when confronted with a surprise lab inspection -- stay put. No good can come of running away and the U.S. lab inspectors may be more forgiving than those in Nigeria.
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