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Kenya: A State agency has expressed concern over increasing incidents of Kenyans receiving wrong diagnosis when they fall ill.
Kenya Accreditation Service (KENAS), the sole accreditation body under the Ministry of Industrialisation, revealed yesterday that a large number of doctors are making costly mistakes in diagnosing diseases due to the unreliable results they receive from unaccredited laboratories.
KENAS attributed the anomaly to unaccredited laboratories in both public and private health facilities.
The agency warned that many Kenyans are getting wrong prescription and medication or medical procedures, thereby putting their lives or health in danger.
KENAS Chief Executive Officer Sammy Milgo noted that many patients are often forced seek repeat visits to doctors since their ailments have not gone away or they have developed other complications as a result of the medication they received. "Our research indicates that as much as 70 per cent of misdiagnosis of diseases in our health facilities can be traced to inaccurate lab results. If doctors unknowingly use faulty results to make treatment decisions, they may cost the lives or health of their patient," said Mr Milgo, adding: "The situation has become so serious that some doctors no longer trust lab results since they have no guarantee if they are accurate or not."
ACCREDIT LABS
For that reason, the agency is scaling up its drive to accredit medical laboratories to ensure they can deliver safe and accurate lab results.
Milgo was speaking yesterday in KENAS headquarters in Nairobi after granting an accreditation certificate to Mombasa branch of Pathologists Lancet Kenya, the largest independent medical lab firm in the country.
"Currently, we have accredited 10 laboratories for hospitals and research institutions. Lancet is the first private medical lab to be accredited. We call upon other labs to submit themselves to accreditation if Kenyans are to trust the results they produce," he said.
KENAS also called on the Kenya Medical Laboratory Technologists and Technicians Board to continue its crackdown on unregistered labs. "We are lobbying the Ministry of Health so that accreditation of registered labs can be made mandatory. Currently, it is done only on a voluntary basis. This requirement can be implemented gradually until reliable lab results can be guaranteed," he said.
Lancet Chief Executive Ahmed Kalebi said accreditation of labs will be a big boost for health care as it will reduce instances of misdiagnosis and cost of health care. Lancet will have all its 20 branches accredited by KENAS so that Kenyans can have full confidence on their lab results.
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