Prior to the enactment of Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act No 11 of 2003, there was nothing called medical laboratory or medical laboratory science in Nigeria. The Act established this discipline and the discipline was created autonomous. It became an independent discipline from Pathology. In fact, the Pathologists are not represented in the Council, unlike what was obtained in the predecessor Acts that antedated the complete severance. Unlike the medical laboratory technicians who were under pathologists when working in the Pathology Laboratories, and who also worked under medical laboratory scientists when working in the Medical Laboratories, the medical laboratory scientists worked in the Medical Laboratories as the superintendent officers, just as Pathologists superintended the Pathology Laboratories.
The Act No 11 made it possible for the different departments in the field of Pathology to have corresponding areas in medical laboratory science that feed them with the relevant biological products, equipment and reagents, from the medical laboratory scientists whose duty it became to produce those equipment within Nigeria, rather than importation of same as was obtained before the enactment of Act No 11.
For the avoidance of doubt, the meaning of pathology and medical laboratory science are covered by law. Pathology as a field is provided for in Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (MDPA) .
Section 1(2)(e) MDPA states the functions of Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) as: "making regulations for the operation of CLINICAL laboratory practice in the field of PATHOLOGY which includes Histopathology, Forensic Pathology, Autopsy and Cytology, Clinical Cytogenetics, Haematology, Medical Micro-biology and Medical Parasitology, Chemical Pathology, Clinical Chemistry, Immunology and Medical Virology". The emphasis here is on CLINICAL laboratory. It shall be seen that in this Act, legislature used clinical laboratory, and not medical laboratory, a clear indication that clinical laboratory (not medical laboratory) is the laboratory meant for the Hospitals.
The definition of medical laboratory science is provided in Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act (MLSNCA). In the paragraph in section 29 Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act No 11 of 2003 (MLSCNA) :
“Medical Laboratory Science”- "Means the practice involving the analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment for the purpose of MEDICAL LABORATORY diagnosis, treatment and research; and includes medical microbiology, clinical chemistry, chemical pathology, haematology, blood transfusion science, virology, histopathology, histochemistry, immunology, cytogenetic, exfoliative cytology parasitology, forensic science, molecular biology, laboratory management; or any other related subject as may be approved by the Council".
It has already been explained elsewhere that the concession to analyze human or animal samples was soley for the scientists to be able to carry out the production, design and fabrication of equipment that can be used or applied to human or animal samples, and not for the use in medical diagnosis and treatment. It has also been contended elsewhere too that "science" as used twice (posterior to blood transfusion and forensic) in the definition of medical laboratory science qualified all the branches of medical laboratory science anterior to them, such that Immunology, for instance, is Immunology Science, Histopathology is Histopathology Science etc.
Thus, the department of Chemical Pathology in the field of Pathology has a corresponding area in medical laboratory science discipline as Chemical Pathology Science. The Haematology Department of the field of Pathology has a corresponding area in medical laboratory science as Haematology Science. The effect is that all the biological, design, fabrication, equipment and reagents used in Chemical Pathology laboratory in the field of Pathology are designed, fabricated and produced in the corresponding Chemical Pathology laboratory in the medical laboratory. The same thing goes for other areas. It is only those departments in the field of Pathology which do not require scientific equipment designs and fabrications that do not need a corresponding area in medical laboratory science discipline.
This is where the confusion as to the similarities and differences between medical laboratory science and Pathology is located. This is also where the fundamental problems emanated from in the training of a pathologists and medical laboratory scientists in Nigeria. This is also where the professional conflict between the medical laboratory scientists and pathologists arose from.
Initially in the development of medical practice, Pathologists trained technicians to assist with sample analysis for the pathologists. All the equipment and reagents used in the pathology laboratories were imported. These equipment and reagents were produced by medical laboratory science professionals outside Nigeria. Gradually laws were enacted serially with the aim of creating a profession that can take over the design, fabrication and production of reagents and equipment for pathology and veterinary medicine laboratories. The medical laboratory technicians were gradually separated from another group of professionals called Medical Laboratory Technologists. This new set of people were trained, not just to analyze samples for the pathologists, but to produce some basic equipment design and fabrication. The control by the pathologists became gradually de-emphasized as that area of equipment production was no more essentially under the competences of the pathologists.
In 2003, the Act No 11 categorically created the profession charged with the design, fabrication and production of biological, reagents and equipment for the pathology laboratories and the veterinary surgeons. This signified the birth of the medical laboratory science profession. In the same year, Act No 12 was also enacted for the production of laboratory equipment, this time, not for the pathologists and veterinary surgeons, but for the scientific establishments, schools and industries.
It is because of the long history and relationship between Pathology and technicians (part of whose training was also allocated to the medical laboratory science profession) that the new discipline of medical laboratory science, erroneously believed that they were still hospital based outfit, despite the clear provisions of their enabling Act to design, fabricate and produce biological and equipment used for the analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids and specimens.
The medical laboratory scientists, who are not pathology technicians, still got jobs in the Teaching Hospitals, and the Federal Government continued to erroneously produce a scheme of service for them in the Teaching Hospitals. It is still this same error and blunder of professional identity that the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria kept producing curriculum and training programs that have no connection to the medical laboratory science profession, and the mandate of their enabling Act No 11 of 2003.
The medical laboratory science students are, for the same reason, made to take courses of instructions in the Teaching Hospitals, against the clear provisions of the Teaching Hospital Management Board Act, where the medical laboratory science students are not in the contemplations of the definition of medical students or indeed of any other students as provided for in the University Teaching Hospital Act and the University Teaching Hospital Management Board Act.
It has become a festering hotchpotch of illegalities rooted in illegalities, and on a chaotic charade.
©Awkadigwe Fredrick Ikenna 2017 (MBBS, LLB, MWACS, DSC)
awkadigweikenna@gmail.com
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© Copyright 2017 Ikenna Fredrick Awkadigwe. All rights reserved. No part of this publication is permitted to be used in any way, copied, photocopied printed, reproduced, transferred, adapted, argued in any fora, used in Court or recreated in any form or resemblance whatsoever, without the written approval and license of the author, Ikenna Fredrick Awkadigwe.
Instructive
ReplyDeleteInstructive and educative
ReplyDeleteThe law was made for man not man for the law. The world has moved on to biotechnology band molecular biology. Are there any laws delimiting these fields to frontiers?
ReplyDelete