Laboratory body wants NHIS guidelines reviewed

By Athan Agbakwuru, Owerri

Guild of Medical Laboratory Directors, GMLD, of the Medical Laboratory

Private Sector in Nigeria has called for the review of Nigerian Health

Insurance Scheme, NHIS, operations and operational guildelines to

accommodate the laboratory private sector in health insurance service

provision to the citizens.

The professionals who declared their unwavering commitment to the

principle  of universal health coverage asserted that the Nigerian

private medical laboratories possess installed capacity that is

grossly under-utilized by the healthcare system.

The call was contained in the communique issued and made available to

newsmen at the end of a four-day retreat of the National Executive

Council, NEC, of GMLD held recently.

In the communique signed by Prince  Elochukwu Adibo who is  the

National President,  Dr. Aminu Suleiman,  National Vice

President (North West), for the communique team and Samuel  Oludare

Fele, the National Secretary -Generalf the body urged the Federal  Ministry of

Health and other relevant ministries,  departments and agencies(MDAs)

to leverage and optimize the available capacity provided by the

private sector laboratories.

According to the document, the move to strengthen the health sector

and  include the laboratory private sector in the health insurance

service to all Nigerians  was one of the resolutions taken after their

annual general conference/annual  general meeting where a new

executive council was elected.

The group decried multiple taxation imposed on its members noting that

 the tax authorities  at the local, state and national levels should

endeavour to  streamline the tax system, remove multiple taxation

in order to alleviate the huge burden of small scale private

medical laboratories practices in the country.

Concerning the menace of Sickle Cell disease  which was one of the

topical issues discussed at the retreat in line with the resolution

taken at the Abia 2020 ANC/ AGM, the body stated that the disease has remained

a public health challenge that required strategic intervention for

eradication.

They assured  that the Laboratory Private  Sector could curtail it by

conducting pre-marital counseling and qualitative

hemoglobin Hb+ electrophoresis tests for neonatal and general

diagnosis.

While calling on the general public, and frontline health workers to

increase compliance and observance of the Nigerian Centre for Disease

Control, NCDC, protocols and guildlines for COVID-19, they noted that the

pandemic exposed Nigeria’s inadequacies, in terms of testing

capacities.

They noted with dismay that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN,  COVID-19

intervention fund is still not accessible to health facilities

especially medical laboratories.