Chief medical director of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals (OAUTH), Prof. John Akintunde Okeniyi, has lamented the negative effects of brain drain in the teaching hospital.
He spoke when the South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) presented accreditation certificate to the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Laboratory in accordance with recognised international standard.
Presenting the certificate to Okeniyi in Ile-Ife, the chief executive officer of APIN Public Health Initiatives, one of the implementing partners of SANAS, Dr. Prosper Okonkwo, represented by the organisation’s Deputy CEO, Dr Jay Osi-Samuels, stated that the laboratory accreditation further qualifies the institution for international recognition.
Osi-Samuels said the lab would assist greatly in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the country and urged the lab workers to imbibe good working attitudes so as to sustain the international recognition of the PCR laboratory.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after the presentation, Okeniyi lamented declining staff strength of the institution owing to brain drain in the health sector, saying the few available staff have been working under intense stress.
He, however, noted that despite the loss of staff to the ‘Japa ‘syndrome, the hospital has been coping due to the commitment of the available workforce to health care delivery but appealed to the federal government to equip the hospital with adequate manpower.
In her submission, Mrs Ebunoluwa Aderonke Adejuyigbe, the project coordinator, a professor of pediatrics and coordinator of ART Laboratory and Programmes in OAUTHC, said, “The laboratory facility currently has a COBAS analyser (C48oo) for running HIV Viral load as well as Early Infant Diagnosis tests for all patients enrolled in the facility.
She said the Laboratory accreditation process is a globally acceptable means of identifying technically competent laboratories and gave assurance that the accreditation certificate will be sustained.