Posted on: Tue 17-03-2015

A private clinic doctor for the second time on Tuesday refused entry to officials of Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria to inspect his lab.
Dr Emeka Obiodunukwe of Demy Health Clinic & Diagnostic Centre in Gudu area of Abuja asked the council’s inspectors to leave his premises, insisting the council did not have a right to inspect his lab.
But officials insist the lab is not manned by a qualified and registered laboratory scientist, as expected for labs, and tests are run by Obiodunukwe himself.
He was absent on Tuesday when officials visited a second time, but in a phone message on speakerphone he threatened legal suit to stop any inspection ahead of formal communication between his legal counsel and the MLSCN, insisting his practice is regulated by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
“You are telling me you have the right to inspect my laboratory, and I am telling you [that] you don’t have the right to inspect my laboratory,” he said over speakerphone to officials. “So is it not better we address this in court, rather than barging into my premises continuously trying to intimidate me?”
MLSCN regulates the practice and training of medical laboratory scientists in the same fashion as MDCN does for doctors and dentists.
“That is where [any similarity] ends, but MLSCN has additional responsibility of inspecting, accrediting labs and approving medical laboratories which the MDCN act doesn’t,” explained the council’s registrar Anthony Emeribe.
“You are a doctor, you can have a hospital and lab, but once it comes to lab services, the laws are straightforward. We are not regulating the doctor’s work as a medical doctor, we are regulating facilities rendering medical laboratory testing. We are not regulating the clinic, but that entity in that infrastructure that renders medical lab testing is what we are regulating.”
DemyHealth is among a handful of clinics and laboratories that came under inspection on the second day of the council’s monitoring of laboratories around the FCT.

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