At the GAMLS Ashanti Regional Congress and Scientific Conference, National President Dr Eric Kofi Aidoo warned that Ghana’s laboratory system has suffered years of neglect, with many health facilities built without adequate laboratory spaces. He noted that laboratories are often treated as an afterthought, forcing hospitals to convert existing rooms such as stores or toilets into makeshift labs, a practice that could compromise quality, biosafety and diagnostic accuracy.
Dr Aidoo urged the government to incorporate properly designed and equipped laboratories into the architectural planning of all health facilities, particularly at the primary level, to support the rollout of the Free Primary Healthcare policy. He added that “if you look at most of the facilities that have been built and the ongoing projects, especially the Agenda 111 structures, they have been built without laboratory offices in mind.”
Delivering the keynote address, Prof Samuel Asamoah Sakyi of KNUST’s Department of Molecular Medicine highlighted the need for “diagnostic sovereignty” – the ability to produce, maintain and innovate diagnostic solutions locally. He argued that COVID‑19 had shown the vulnerability of countries that depend on external supply chains and called for investment in local production of reagents, consumables, equipment servicing, calibration, laboratory information systems, molecular diagnostics and quality‑control materials.
Prof Sakyi also urged medical laboratory scientists to take a more active role in health policy, insisting that they must be at the table when primary healthcare policies are developed, diagnostic equipment is procured, national screening programmes are designed and health information systems are created.
The congress brought together laboratory scientists, academics, health policy experts and students to discuss ways of strengthening Ghana’s diagnostic systems and positioning laboratory services at the heart of primary healthcare delivery.
