REVEALED: THE NIGERIAN CONSTITUTION DOES VIOLENCE TO MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE PROFESSION AND PRESERVES PATHOLOGY

The contention of the plaintiffs is that Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act of 2003 has repealed in part the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act of 1988, and replaced the field of Pathology with medical laboratory science.

How true is this contention, and how statutory is this assertion. We shall be finding out shortly.

The claim was founded on the sinking-sand belief of the plaintiffs that there was conflict between pathology and medical laboratory science, and that given the fact that the 2003 Act was later in time than the 1988 Act, the later 2003 Act had repealed the later Act by implication. Unfortunately, the plaintiffs refused or failed to examine all the appropriate laws guiding patient management in Teaching Hospitals. The relevant laws include :

a.  The Medical and Dental Practitioners Act No 23 of 1988 (MDPA) which established the medical profession for medical practitioners only, including the doctors in the field of Pathology

b.  Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act No 11 of 2003 (MLSCNA) which established the medical laboratories as places where medical instruments and reagents, used for the analysis of human or animal specimens, are designed and produced.

c.  The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which preserved all the fields of Medical Practice at its section 144, including the field of Pathology

d. The National Medical College Act 1979 which qualifies all the Specialists in the field of Medicine including the field of Pathology

e. The National Health Act 2014 which is the omnibus legislation on health management of Nigerians, and which handed over the testing of human samples in the hospitals exclusively to the medical practitioners, and

f. The Teaching Hospital Acts which were primarily created for the provision of facilities for the training of Pathologists and other cadre of Medical Students.

g. The Teaching Hospitals Board Reconstitution Act

We shall now examine the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act and the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, the National Health Act, the National Medical College Act and the Teaching Hospital Acts, to see clearly if Legislature has enacted any law to repeal the field of Pathology in any way. It shall become evident after this examination, that the field of Pathology is the ONLY approved field of hospital laboratories established for the Teaching Hospitals in Nigeria.

The process of medical investigation or laboratory testing of a patient in a hospital is designed, deliberate and simple. The attending physician (who could also be a pathologist), after taking the history of the patient and conducting a physical examination on that same patient, sends the patient for tests or investigations if there is a need for this. The patient is given the investigation forms which are referrals or consults to the pathologists (where the attending physician is not a pathologist). The patient takes these forms/consults to the pathologists in the hospital laboratories. These hospital laboratories are what are in contention in the law suits.

It is the claim of the plaintiffs that these hospital laboratories are medical laboratory science laboratories. The defendants maintain that these laboratories are pathology laboratories. If they are medical laboratories, the plaintiffs contend that only members of the medical laboratory science profession can practice in those laboratories. The pathologists must be completely dislodged from there because they are barred by law to practice in the medical laboratories.

However, the situation is a bit different if the hospital laboratories are pathology laboratories. The defendants contend that medical laboratory scientists can still be allowed to practice as assistants to the pathologists at the analysis section of the pathology laboratories. This, the pathologists have maintained, and rightly so in my view, that is the only section of the hospital laboratories that the enabling law of the medical laboratory science profession permits the medical laboratory scientists to be limited to in hospital setting and practice.

Now, inside the hospital laboratories, the patient's tissues, body fluid or excretions are collected, used or given out. The tissues, body fluid or excretions are stored after collection and analyzed later in some situations.

Analysis involves the separation of the components of the collected tissues, body fluid and excretions, and count or estimate them. The estimated contents and configurations of the samples are then recorded as data. These analysis data are then interpreted with reference to the parameters supplied in the consult about the specific patient. In the end, a medical report of the investigation is transmitted to the referring physician to use in the patient management, or used by the pathologist if he is the clinician that saw.

The question now is whether medical laboratory scientists or technicians who work in the Teaching Hospitals have the statutory, legal and professional rights and capacity to perform the above enumerated retinue of stepwise functions in the hospital laboratories. Could a medical laboratory scientist or technician conduct medical tests or investigations on a patient. Could a medical laboratory scientist or technician professionally and lawfully collect human tissues, body fluid and excretions from a living person in the hospital, analyze, interpret and send the medical report to a physician. Is the job of a pathologist, who collects the samples from the patient, stores the samples for the analysis, interprets the data from the analysis using patient information from the referring clinician, and dispatching the results to the referring physician in the course of his functions, in any way, in conflict with the job of the medical laboratory scientists who only analyze the samples as presented to him by the pathologists and nothing more? The answers to these queries are No.

The perceived conflicts is a result of wrong confusion of the provisions of the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act and the provisions of the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act. These Acts are not in conflict in any way.

The respective Acts named similar specialties/subspecialties as the case may be according as the subject matter is for medical laboratory science or pathology, but inside each specialty/subspecialty, the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act, defined the functions of the medical laboratory scientists in the scheme of things of the specialty to be limited to the analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment. These functions do not extend to the collection or storage of tissues, body fluids and excretions. Those are the jobs for another category of staff in the hospital setting. The functions do not also extend to the interpretation of the analysis data using patient demographics and other information provided in the consults. Those are also the job of another category of staff in the hospital. Therefore, in the same hospital laboratories where a medical laboratory scientists or technician is employed to assist the pathologists, his job is defined and cut out.

The Act No 11 of 2003 made it possible for the different subspecialties in the field of Pathology to have corresponding specialties 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 of medicine, is provided for in Nigerian Medical College Act, and also in the 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. Clinical laboratory practice is in the field of Pathology. This Act did not however make a comprehensive definition of pathology, or circumscribe or limit the scope of pathology. It only mentioned the branches of pathology.

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".

The respective branches of these two professions are not equal in number. While pathology has ten branches, medical laboratory science has 15 branches. The implications of this disparity is that medical laboratory science does not only feed into laboratory practice only. It is a science, the products which are capable of being utilized even in general medical, pharmaceutical and other practices when considered relevant.

The plaintiffs always wilfully ignore the circumscribed definition and scope of medical laboratory science, and harp on the branches which are neither identical in name, contents or in scope, but similar in the nomenclature used in designating some of the branches. This they do to create erroneous impression that pathology and medical laboratory science are similar and thus conflicting. This is not so.

It therefore stands incontrovertible that for almost each and every branch of clinical laboratory practice, there is a corresponding branch of medical laboratory practice involved in the analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment by the medical laboratory scientist for that clinical laboratory practice.

Thus, CLINICAL laboratory practice in the field of pathology by the pathologist in Histopathology, will, in addition to the exclusive statutory medical functions of the pathologist (namely the collection of tissues, body fluid and secretions, storage of same, interpretation of the data produced from the bench work, the issuance of the consequential medical report on the relevant patient, and follow up), require the involvement of the analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment by the medical laboratory scientist in histopathology branch of medical laboratory science.

The branch of pathology (clinical laboratory) which does not have a corresponding branch in medical laboratory science simply means that analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment, are not necessary for that clinical laboratory practice. A good example is Autopsy, which has no corresponding branch in medical laboratory science.

The branch of medical laboratory science which does not have a corresponding branch in pathology simply means that the analysis of human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment, do not lead up to any necessary direct branch of a clinical laboratory practice. In other words, those branches of medical laboratory science practice that do not feed directly into any stipulated branch of pathology, are not created to have a direct health technology input into pathology. They are in fact created to feed health technology input into other medical specialties other than pathology in a hospital-based health service delivery.

A good example is blood transfusion science branch of medical laboratory science . This branch feeds directly into medical practice generally, and not just pathology. This is because even paediatricians, surgeons, anaesthesiologists, obstetricians, pathologists (haematologist pathologists) etc use the products of the produced biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment (including blood bags, anticoagulants, EDTA bottles etc) by blood transfusion science branch  of the medical laboratory science for blood transfusion services to the hospital patients.

These blood transfusion equipments and reagents are not produced in pathology/hospital/clinical laboratories. No. They are produced in medical laboratories, which are production outfits not in any way close to hospitals premises.

It has already been explained elsewhere that the concession to analyze human or animal tissues, body fluid and excretions was soley for the medical laboratory 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. It has also been contended in 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. Therefore, when laboratory scientists work in pathology laboratories, they are only involved in those aspects of the science part of the branch, and not in the medical and arts part which are purely Pathology.

However, it now appears that the new National Health Act has even eroded the provisions of the Medical Laboratory Science Council Act, empowering the medical laboratory scientists to analyze human or animal tissues, body fluid and excretions. Tissue was not defined in MLSCNA and the definition in the National Health Act shall suffice.

Section 52 of the National Health Act 2014 states:

"(1) Only a registered medical practitioner or dentist may remove any tissue from a living person, use tissue so removed for any of the purposes stated in this Act or transplant tissue so removed into another living person

(2) Only a registered medical practitioner or dentist , or a person acting under the supervision or on the instructions of a medical practitioner or dentist , may administer blood or a blood product, or prescribe blood or a blood product for, a living person".

Section 64 of the same National Health Act states:

"tissue" means "human tissue, and includes flesh, bone, a gland, an organ, skin, bone marrow or body fluid, but excludes blood or a gamete".

Tissue above includes body fluid. Body fluid includes excretions. Tissue does not include blood. If body fluid includes blood, then blood is therefore not part of the possible subject matter of analysis handed to the medical laboratory scientists in section 29 of the MLSCNA.

Section 49 (1) of the National Health Act states:

"Subject to the provision of section 52 of this Act, a person shall use tissue removed or blood or a blood product withdrawn from a living person only for such medical or dental purposes as may be prescribed".

This provision was not subjected to the MLSCNA, neither was section 52. This means that the only legal purposes for the use of human tissue and blood shall be for medical and dental purposes only. This abolishes the use of human tissue and blood for any other purposes than medical and dental. Medical laboratory scientists can only use animal tissues and animal blood for the medical laboratory diagnosis, treatment and research. These are done in the medical laboratories. This has buttressed the assertion that hospital laboratory investigations are medical investigations, and not a medical laboratory investigation. Thus, if hospital laboratory investigations are medical investigations, then,  pathologists, not medical laboratory scientists, are statutorily empowered to undertake the investigations.

Section 48(1) of the National Health Act states further:

"Subject to the provision of section 53, a person shall not remove tissue, blood or blood product from the body of another living person except
(a) with the informed consent of the person from whom the tissue, blood or blood product is removed granted in the prescribed manner
(b) that the consent clause may be waived for MEDICAL investigations and treatment in emergency cases; and
(c) in accordance with prescribed protocols by the appropriate authority".

The section 48(1)(b)  is a confirmation of the necessary implications of the provisions of section 49(1) that hospital laboratory tests are purely medical investigations to be carried out by medical practitioners (pathologists).

The Long Title of the National Health Act declares:

"An Act To Provide A Framework For The Regulation , Development And Management Of A National Health System And Set Standards For Rendering Health Services In The Federation; And For Related Matters".

Section 1 (1) of the National Health Act goes on to state:

"There is established for the Federation the National Health System, which shall define and provide a framework for standards and regulation of health services, without prejudice to extant professional regulatory laws".

The use of the phrase "without prejudice to extant professional regulatory laws" has not subjected the provisions of the National Health Act to the provisions of those extant professional regulatory bodies. The use only allowed those extant laws to exist side by side the National Health Act, and apply to the extent that the National Health Act is subjected to it. Any provisions of the National Health Act not subjected to a conflicting provision of any of the extant regulatory laws, will prevail: see leges contraris principle. The National Health Act, subjected some of its provisions to extant regulatory laws, and some of the times to itself, as seen in Sections 15(2), 16(2), 17(1), 21(1), 21(2), 25, 26(2), 45(1), 48(1) and 49(1).

Section 64 of the same National Health Act which is the Interpretation Section of the National Health Act states:

"Statutory Health Professional Council" means a professional regulatory body established by an Act or Law".

The use of the term "Law" in this definition is superfluous as "Professional Regulations " are under the Exclusive List and thus not established by Law,  but by Act of the National Assembly. Secondly, Health Professional Bodies as defined above means professional regulatory body not limited to health. It includes the Legal Practitioners Regulatory Bodies, and Archiving Personnel Regulatory Bodies, etc, as Legal Profession and Archiving Professionals etc, are included in the professions in the National Health Act.

Furthermore,  "National Health System" means "the system within the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whether in the public or private sector, concerned with the financing, provision or delivery and regulation of health services".

"Health services" means "health care services that are preventive, protective, promotive, curative and rehabilitative in respect of physical mental and social well being".

The medical laboratory science belong to the health technology professional category of the National Health Act. According to the definition section 64 of the National Health Act:

"health technology" means "machinery or equipment that is used in the provision of health services, but does not include medicine as defined in the Drugs and Related Products Registration etc Act. No. 19 of 1993".

This means that the medical laboratory scientists belong to the the health technologists according to the National Health Act. Medical laboratory scientists and technologists who produce medical laboratory equipment, just like medical scientists and technologists who produce medical equipment like stethoscopes and sphigmomanometers, belong to the same group of health technologists as provided in the National Health Act. They are not health workers as provided for in the Act. According to the National Health Act:

"health worker" means "any person who is involved in the provision of health services to a user, but does not include a health care provider".

Health workers therefore provide health services, and not machinery or equipment that is used in the provision of health services. The provision of health services does not include the provision of health technology. In fact, the provision of health services appeared in Part 1 of the Act, while the provision of health technology appeared in Part 2 of the Act. It is instructive that while the provision of health services is the primary and integral part of the National Health System, health technology is an incidental part of the Act. See Parts 1 and 2 of the Act.

Section 1 (1) of the National Health Act states:

"There is hereby established for the Federation the National Health System which shall define and provide a framework for standards and regulation of health services".

It is clear from this provision that the primary purpose for the enactment of the National Health Act is for the definition and provision of framework for standards and regulation of health services. Medical laboratory scientists clearly do not belong here. This is because Health Technology is not included as a part of the National Health System in Part 1 of the National Health Act. The Act separately went ahead to provide in its Part 2 for Health Establishment (which is included in the National Health System) and Health Technology (which was not included in the National Health System). While medical practice and field of pathology belong in the Health Establishment category of the National Health System, medical laboratory science practice belongs squarely in the Health Technology category, as the other matters connected therewith as stated in the Long Title of the National Health Act.

"health establishment" means "the whole or part of a public or private institution, facility, building or place, whether for profit or not, that is operated or designed to provide inpatient or outpatient treatment, diagnostic or therapeutic interventions, nursing, rehabilitative, palliative, convalescent, preventative or other health service under section 13".

The provisions of Sections 1 and 52 of the National Health Act need thorough examination given the earlier prescribed functions of the medical laboratory scientists in their enabling Act. The survival of section 29 of the Medical Laboratory Science Council Act depends totally on Sections 1, 48, 49 and 52 of the National Health Act which is not only the omnibus regulation on patients management and health services, but is also a newer legislation in the face of leges contraris principle.

The National Health Act subsumed every other professional regulatory law, by preservation and superimposition. The Act saved all the regulatory laws of all the professions involved in health service and technology delivery, while at the same time providing framework and conditions for their operability.

The National Health Act preserved the definition and function of Medical Laboratory Science to analyze human or animal tissues, body fluids, excretions, production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment on one hand. The same National Health Act went ahead to forbid every other profession to collect or analyze human tissues at its section 52 without subjecting this forbearance to any of the extant professional regulatory laws. This is an unconditional ban.

The National Health Act therefore has subjected the collection and use of human tissues, body fluids and excretions for any national health purposes (including health service and health technology delivery), to the implementation, supervision, direction and approval of the medical practitioners only, in Sections 48, 49 and 52 of the National Health Act 2014. Had the Act subjected these provisions to any of the extant regulatory laws of the other professions, the use of human tissue by the medical laboratory scientists for the production of biologicals, reagents and equipment for medical laboratory diagnosis, treatment and research, could still have been preserved. But the tenor and statutory construction of the National Health Act at the moment, has left the medical laboratory scientists with animal tissues and animal blood only, to work with.

The import of section 52 of the National Health Act 2014 is that the collection, use, supervision and direction of use of human tissues and blood in the health sector, from a living person, are now exclusively dispatched to the sole prerogative of the medical practitioners for medical and dental use only. This simply means that medical laboratory scientists cannot analyze human samples without the collection by medical and dental practitioners, with the approval and sanction of the use purely for medical and dental purposes by the medical and dental practitioners, if such collection, analysis and use are within the use approved for the National Health System, as no use is approved by the Act for Health Technology.


The National Health System is different from the National Health Act as a whole. While National Health System is concerned with health service delivery by health workers, the National Health Act is concerned with both health service and health technology delivery by health workers and health technologists. The use of human tissue and blood is banned in health technology.

Medical and Dental practitioners are thus the only categories of professionals empowered by law in Nigeria to collect, use or direct the use of tissues, blood and body fluids from a living person in Nigeria within the National Health System, and Act.

Furthermore, the combined effects of section 48 and 52 of the National Health Act are that only medical and dental practitioners can undertake medical investigations and treatment of living persons. Only medical and dental practitioners can prescribe the use of blood or a blood product in Nigeria.

Therefore, as stated in section 52 (1) of the National Health Act 2014:

Only a registered medical practitioner or dentist
(a) may remove any tissue from a living person
(b) use tissue so removed for any of the purposes stated in this Act or
(c) transplant tissue so removed into another living person.

"tissue" means "human tissue, and includes flesh, bone, a gland, an organ, skin, bone marrow or body fluid, but excludes blood or a gamete".

Body fluid includes secretions from the body including saliva, vaginal secretions, wound secretions, urine, anal secretions, eye secretions, semen etc.

The purposes stated in the Act include both health service delivery and health technology delivery. The providers of health technology services are not health workers,  nor are they health service providers; rather they provide machinery and equipment for those that provide health services. In any case, the use of human tissues for both purposes, if they are medical and dental purposes, have been placed squarely under the full control and supervisions of the medical and dental practitioners.

The (b) limb of section 52 of the National Health Act is where the job of the medical laboratory scientists and technicians in the Teaching Hospitals fall. If the National Health Act has provided at its section 52 that only medical practitioners can investigate patients, the claimed role of medical laboratory scientists in the hospital laboratories has been dispensed with. The fact that the National Health Act preserved the extant professional regulatory laws at its section 1 does not come to the rescue of the medical laboratory scientists. This is because section 52 was not subjected to the extant professional regulatory laws. The clear and unambiguous provisions of the National Health Act, which are not subjected to any section of the National Health Act or any extant professional regulatory laws, prevails over any other sections of the National Health Act or regulatory laws; the National Health Act being the omnibus regulatory law in the Nigerian Health System, and Act.

The National Health Act made it clear that only medical doctors can collect tissue and blood, use them and transplant them for medical and dental purposes only. Use includes preserve or dissect according to the Act. Only medical doctors can also prescribe or give blood or blood products. Because tissue did not include blood or gamete, the Act has left a vacuum on who can take blood samples or gamete. This vacuum is quickly filled by the provision of section 49. (1) thus:

"Subject to the provision of section 53, a person shall use tissue removed or blood or a blood product withdrawn from a living person only for such medical or dental purposes as may be prescribe".

The clear implication of this is that only medical and dental practitioners, or those acting under their instructions and supervisions can collect or remove tissues or blood from a living person. This is because only medical and dental practitioners can determine when there is a medical or dental indication for collection or removal of tissues or blood. The use of phlebotomists not working under the medical or dental practitioner becomes illegal.

The medical laboratory science is now left with the production of biologicals, design and fabrication of equipment for the purpose of medical laboratory diagnosis, treatment and research.
The combined effects of the provisions of sections 1, 48 and 52 of the National Health Act, and the extrapolated construction of section 29 of MLSCNA, do not create two parallel or coterminous professions of pathology and medical laboratory science in the job of human samples analysis. Even if it is presumed without concession that the National Health Act has created two parallel professions for human sample analysis, the jobs of the pathologists and the medical laboratory scientists will be declared to be in conflict and the provisions of the National Health Act which is a latter law would definitely prevail; leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant (later laws abrogate prior contrary laws).  See Akintokun v Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (2004) LPELR - 22941 (SC)  at 62-63, paras. C-A.

This means that medical laboratory science has been further restricted in scope and extent by the National Health Act. The hitherto latitude afforded the medical laboratory scientists to analyse human or animal tissues, body fluid and excretions prior to the coming into effect of the National Health Act has been abridged. This is because the purpose of such analysis falls within the purview of the National Health Act which has now restricted all purposes of collection, use and transplant of human tissues and body fluids to medical and dental purposes only.

Moreover, in the concerted efforts to strengthen the position of the pathologists in the hospital laboratories, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Teaching Hospital Acts, the Teaching Hospitals Board Reconstitution Act, and the National Medical College Act, preserved all the fields of the medical profession, including pathology.

Section 144. (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, states:

"The President or Vice-President shall cease to hold office, if -
(a) by a resolution passed by two-thirds majority of all the members of the executive council of the Federation it is declared that the President or Vice-President is incapable of discharging the functions of his office; and
(b) the declaration is verified, after such medical examination as may be necessary, by a medical panel established under subsection (4) of this section in its report to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
(2) Where the medical panel certifies in the report that in its opinion the President or Vice-President is suffering from such infirmity of body or mind as renders him permanently incapable of discharging the functions of his office, a notice thereof signed by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall be published in the Official Gazette of the Government of the Federation.
(3) The President or Vice-President shall cease to hold office as from the date of publication of the notice of the medical report pursuant to subsection (2) of this section.
(4) the medical panel to which this section relates shall be appointed by the President of the Senate, and shall comprise five medical practitioners in Nigeria:-
(a) one of whom shall be the personal physician of the holder of the office concerned; and
(b) four other medical practitioners who have, in the opinion of the President of the Senate, attained a high degree of eminence in the field of medicine relative to the nature of the examination to be conducted in accordance with the foregoing provisions".

What then are the fields of medicine. The fields of medicine are provided for in the National Medical College Act of Nigeria 1979. The relevant sections of the Act are as follows.

The long title of the NATIONAL MEDICAL COLLEGE ACT states:

"An Act to establish a National Medical College to be charged with the responsibility of conducting examinations in the various specialised branches of medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology and dental surgery and other related matters".

Section 2 of the Act states :

"2. The College shall have responsibility for the conduct of professional post-graduate examination of candidates in the various specialised branches of medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology and dental surgery and making awards in relation thereto accordingly".

Section 10 of the National Medical College Act states :

"Where a candidate offers himself for examination under this Act he shall satisfy the appropriate Faculty Board-
(a)    that he is a registered medical practitioner or dental surgeon, as the case may be, so however that if the candidate is on the temporary register he may be examined only by leave of the Senate given either generally or as a special case; and
(b)    that he is in possession of and is therein named as the holder of a certificate from an institution recognised by the College showing that he has satisfactorily attended the prescribed course of training in the particular speciatised branch and for the prescribed period of the course".

Section 9 of the National Medical College Act, states:

9(1)    Each faculty shall comprise all fellows in the appropriate specialty and the faculties in the College shall be as follows, that is-
(a)    the faculty of anaesthesia;
(b)    the faculty of general dental practice;
(c)    the faculty of dental surgery;
(d)    the faculty of general medical practice;
(e)    the faculty of obstetrics and gynaecology;
(f)     the faculty of ophthalmology;
(g)    the faculty of paediatrics;
(h)    the faculty of pathology;
(i)     the faculty of physiology;
(j)     the faculty of psychiatry;
(k)    the faculty of public health;
(l)     the faculty of radiology;
(m)   the faculty of surgery; and
(n)    the faculty of any other specialty as may be prescribed by the Governing Board of the College.

From the foregoing, it is clear that the Constitution has preserved all the fields of medicine at section 144(4)(b).

Medical Examination involves history taking, physical examination and medical investigations. The doctors that will constitute the medical panel must be from the field of medicine relative to the nature of the examination to be conducted. Therefore, if Mr President is suspected to have leukemia and the medical examination is in Haematology, a medical practitioner who is a pathology Haematologist must be included on the medical panel. The medical laboratory Haematologist appears to be contending in this suit that MLSCNA has created him,  repealed pathology, and placed him in the place of the pathology Haematologist in the Constitutional Medical Panel.

The clear provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, coupled with the provisions of the National Medical College Act and the National Health Act, make it utterly unthinkable for the plaintiffs to contemplate and conceptualize that the medical laboratory scientists can now report on the President or Vice President of Nigeria during the Medical Examination as provided in section 144 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in view of this constitutional provisions on Medical Panel.

The averments of the plaintiffs that medical laboratory science has repealed and replaced pathology is beside comprehension. The plaintiffs are now of the opinion that suggests that medical laboratory scientists have replaced the pathologists on the Constitutional Medical Panel, because according to the plaintiffs, medical laboratory science has repealed and replaced pathology.

I hastely renounce that line of thought. The weight of evidence as adduced above is 99 to 1. The cited relevant laws are categorical as they are invasive into the core of the issues in dispute.

A constitutional provision cannot be displaced by the provision of an Act of Parliament.

©Awkadigwe Fredrick Ikenna
(MBBS, LLB, MWACS, DSC).

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