…As preventive health checks initiative gets endorsement from Diaspora citizens, medlab consumables vendors
By Enyeribe Ejiogu
The 4×4 relay race is a major track and field event at the Olympic Games, in which teamwork is extremely vital for the success of the team. The team member who starts the race and then passes the baton is as important as the one who races to breast the tape with the baton firmly held in the hand. Perfect and timely baton transfer is key to success.
In choosing the placement of members of the relay team, the coach must understand and rely on the skill and strengths of each member of the team. He must know how to combine these attributes wisely, to enable the team excel and win the medal.
The interplay of efforts of relay teams is akin to the healthcare delivery system, where the government (represented by the Health ministry) is the coach and sick patients are like the baton, who need to be handled with professional skill by every member of the healthcare value chain, comprising nurses, laboratory scientists, pharmacists, radiographers, doctors and other health-allied professionals.
When all the relevant health professionals pull together with one mind, like a team in a tug-of-war game, deploying their individual strengths, a sick patient that receives such focused attention will most definitely recover and there is joy all around just like when the Super Eagles score goals against their opponents.
In an interaction with Sunday Sun via a WhatsApp chat, National President of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, Dr. Uche Odionyenma, underscored the central role which collaboration between health professionals plays in enhancing outcomes in the country’s healthcare delivery system.
As he observed, the global best practice is placement of patients at the core of clinical practice and care. It is this recognition that has been driving the transformation of training of pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists and nurses to focus on clinical care, so that these categories of health professionals will be on the same page with medical doctors in the relay race to rescue patients from disease conditions.
His words: “In the healthcare value chain today, the operative mindset is collaboration. Healthcare professionals from different disciplines (medical laboratory scientists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc), all need to work seamlessly together, sharing information and expertise to ensure a holistic approach to patient care. They must be patient-centric, which means that all activities within the value chain revolve around understanding and addressing the specific needs of the individual patients, which includes personalized treatment plan, accessible and understandable information, and ongoing support. Patient care is teamwork, requiring the pooling of ideas of varied professionals aimed at quick recovery of a patient.
“Here, the well-being of the patient is prioritized as different professionals work together to achieve the best possible outcomes. This is crucial in fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvements. Given that the healthcare landscape is constantly evolving with new technologies, treatments, and guidelines, a mindset of continuous learning and improvement is essential to ensure that healthcare professionals are up-to-date and they are providing the best possible care.”
As the coach of the healthcare relay team, Odionyenma strongly believes that the government must necessarily formulate, explicitly communicate and implement policy frameworks that make the defined mindset work well to the benefit of patients.
In this regard, he advocates that “the government should give equal opportunities to and treat all health professionals in the health sector with justice, fairness, and career progression, including professional autonomy, which will motivate every profession in the chain to contribute its best in the health sector.
“The defined operative guiding mindset can work well to the benefit of the patients if the government through policy implementation treats every member of the team equally. The government should create an enabling environment for the team members to build strong relationships based on mutual respect and trust.
“These are the needed ingredients for effective collaboration and patient care.
The government can also streamline processes through policy implementation, optimize resource allocation, and leverage technology to improve outcomes while considering the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the value chain with patient care being paramount.”
In the run-up to the 2023 General Election, President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had focused his campaign on the Renewed Hope Agenda, as the vehicle that would convey Nigerians to a better future of growth and generalized prosperity.
Two years into the four-year tenure, majority of Nigerians are yet to experience the promised dividends of the agenda. However, Odionyenma, a strong optimist opines that transformative processes are like seeds sown in a soil which must first germinate, put out shoots, grow, mature and then begin to produce fruits. For this process to produce fruits for the healthcare sector of the economy, he proffered a way forward that will enable the Renewed Hope Agenda enhance the health of Nigerians in the short, medium and long terms.
His words: “First, let me state that the Renewed Hope Agenda is a transformative policy trust of President Bola Tinubu, which has the following priority areas: (1) reform the economy to deliver sustained inclusive growth; (2) strengthen national security for peace and prosperity; (3) boost agriculture to achieve food security; (4) lock energy and national resources for sustainable development; (5) enhance infrastructure and transportation as enablers of growth; (6) focus on education, health, and social investment as essential pillars of development; (7) accelerate diversification through industrialization, digitalization, creative arts, manufacturing and innovation and (8) improve governance for effective service delivery.”
“Now, the sixth item of the agenda is the focus of our discussion. I will be stating the obvious when I say that health ranks extraordinarily high on the pyramid of desire because a healthy nation is a productive one. The Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is currently implementing the Renewed Hope Agenda, which focuses on improving governance in the health sector, unlocking the healthcare value chain, and ensuring health security for Nigerians.
“This involves initiatives like improving the quality of primary healthcare, upgrading infrastructure and equipment as well as re-training healthcare workers. The Tinubu administration can do a lot to enhance the health of Nigerians in the short, medium, and long terms. First and foremost, it is necessary that the budgetary allocation for health must reflect the AU2001 Abuja Declaration of at least 15 percent of the annual budget to improve the healthcare system and address pressing challenges like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, with adequate attention being given to infrastructure, rural investments in the health sector, basic healthcare funds, and vaccines, training of frontline health workers to deliver integrated high-quality services, provision of financing mechanisms to support healthcare manufacturing companies and enhancements of level 1 primary health facilities to level 2, to widen capacities.
“The Presidential Initiative to unlock the Healthcare Value Chain, PIHVAC, is a welcome development as it promises execution of more interventions and progress Also, the Renewed Hope Medical Relief Programme to be implemented through PIHVAC will subsidize the cost of medicines, channel activated real demand to Nigerian manufacturers, lower costs, and ensure quality. These initiatives of the present regime in the health sector are highly commendable.
“In organizing and institutionalizing emergency medical services across Nigeria, the National Emergency Medical Services, NEMSA, should be strengthened to support states to establish state emergency medical services governance and operational structure as well as launch the rural emergency service and maternal transport in areas with limited NEMSA coverage. Let me also add that public health legislation and public health emergency management standards should be structured for states. Moreover, laboratory and diagnostic capacity optimization, human resource capacity development are equally necessary for enhancement of the Nigerian health system.”
Towards marking the 2025 World Biomedical Laboratory Science Day, Odionyenma had addressed journalists at a press conference, during which he highlighted the key role of biomedical laboratory personnel in diagnostic and preventive health care systems. Quite importantly, medical laboratory scientists centrally participate in the early detection and accurate diagnosis of diseases, monitoring of treatment, disease surveillance and prevention.
For medical laboratory scientists to deliver on the goal of promoting sustainability in clinical diagnostics, which is the theme of the WBLS Day for the two-year period, 2025-2026, he said that medical laboratory scientists in leadership positions should utilize the internal governance processes of federal, state and private health facilities to ensure that the following things are necessarily done: put in place sustainable testing and sustainable procurement; apply efficiency in the utilization of resources; engage adequate number of qualified medical laboratory personnel; establish and maintain high standards for qualifications and continuing professional development that include education and training on quality and patient safety; have secure quality management systems and governance of decisions; focus on end-to-end error prevention; improve laboratory testing services by applying continuous quality improvement principles and research for better methods and tests; provide patients and the public with information they can understand about laboratory testing, the benefits and limitations; provide test results and interpretation to inform the diagnosis and subsequent treatment; focus on improving patient outcomes using new technologies, such as personalized medicine by contributing our professional expertise.
Preventive Health Checks Roll Out
At a time when Nigerians are experiencing excruciating pain resulting from the astronomical cost of living which has negatively impacted the health-seeking attitude of Nigerians, it is heart-warming that a core group of Nigerians have come together under the umbrella of People For People to drive a major preventive health checks initiative, which will be run in collaboration with relevant bodies in the healthcare value chain.
Sunday Sun learnt from the grapevine that the organisers of the proposed initiative have received a take-off grant from one of the sponsors for the purpose of conducting further research, gather operational data and carry out more consultation towards working out strategies for ensuring a successful and effective roll out of the initiative in the first six states before expanding across the country.
Sunday Sun further gathered that some major vendors of medical laboratory equipment and consumables have endorsed the initiative.