The permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Health, Daju Kachollom, has called for collaboration among medical laboratory professionals in order to improve service delivery in the field of pathology.
She made the call at the joint 3rd African Assembly of the International Academy of Pathology (IAP) and the 14th conference of the Anglophone West African Division of the International Academy of Pathology (WADIAP), themed: “Evolutionary Trend In Modern Pathology Practice” in Abuja.
She called on medical laboratory professionals to eschew rivalry, which according to her, is crippling the efficiency and quality of services rendered to patients.
She also called on the medical diagnostic subsector to key into the health agenda of the ministry and as well explore available opportunities presented by the agenda.
“The Federal Ministry of Health, under the leadership of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, has unveiled the four-point agenda of the health sector: Improve Governance, improve population health outcome, unlocking healthcare value chain and to provide health security for all Nigerians.
“It is therefore pertinent to request the medical community in Nigeria and specifically the diagnostic medical subsector including Histopathology to explore opportunities in the healthcare value chain’ pillar to provide workable solutions,” she said.
President of WADIAP, Edwin Kwame Wiredu, identified lack of finance as one of the factors affecting training of pathologists in Africa.
“If we want training of pathologists to go at the pace we want it to go, we need to have all the tools that we need for training. Technological improvement will make it even for difficult for Africa to train more pathologist because the tests that are required are more sophisticated and the equipment required now are more expensive.
“If we’ve not been able to cope with the old technology, then new technologies are going to make it almost impossible for us to catch up,” he added.
The medical director, Federal Medical Center, Jabi, Prof Saad Ahmed urged laboratory owners to encourage each other to encourage and collaborate in order to embrace digitisation of pathology.
