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Lab scientists query medical report on Buhari’s health

By Joseph Okoghenun
22 January 2015   |   9:45 pm
LABORATORY scientists under the aegis of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) have dismissed a purported medical report which claims that the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has prostate cancer.     For weeks now, a medical report, which purportedly originated from  the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH)…

Buhari

LABORATORY scientists under the aegis of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) have dismissed a purported medical report which claims that the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has prostate cancer. 

   For weeks now, a medical report, which purportedly originated from  the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) has   been in circulation in the social media, with the impression that Buhari has prostate cancer. 

  Although the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation had severally   quoted ABUTH debunking the allegation, some critics have seen such denials as a political statement which should not be taken seriously. 

 But AMLSN stated yesterday that the said laboratory test result was  suspicious. 

  In a statement by the association’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr. Adeyeye Adetunji Tam, the group said “the purported laboratory reports must have emanated from quacks or persons with hidden agenda best known to them.”  

 The AMLSN National President, Mr. Toyosi Raheem, told The Guardian yesterday that the association was  forced to clear the air on the authenticity of the medical report on  Buhari because the name of medical  laboratory science profession was  being rubbished by unscrupulous elements.

 AMLSN, whose aim is to further the public interest by encouraging the study, advancing and improving the practice of medical laboratory science, has members who are popularly known as medical  laboratory scientists across  the  federation. The members are empowered by law to perform a full range of laboratory tests – from simple prenatal blood tests, to more complex tests to uncover diseases such as  human  immunodeficiency  syndrome (HIV), diabetes and cancer and  are  responsible for confirming the accuracy of test results, and reporting laboratory findings to pathologists and other physicians. The information that a medical laboratory scientists gives to doctors influences the medical treatment a patient will receive. 

 The statement reads in part: “The attention of AMLSN has been drawn to a purported ‘medical report’ on one of the presidential candidates, Gen. Muhammedu Buhari of APC. The said report was circulated via the social media. A closer examination of the said ‘medical report’ showed that the report were suspicious ‘laboratory test results’ which were hand-written on medical laboratory report forms claimed to be that of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria. 

   “Ordinarily, AMLSN- a non-partisan, non-religious but purely professional association– would have ignored the incident. But the leadership of the association decided to respond to the ugly development based on the name of medical laboratory profession that was dragged into the issue. We wish to state that following investigations made by our colleagues in ABUTH, the report forms on which the results were written were fake and are at variance with that of ABUTH Zaria. The ABUTH management has since reported that the three ‘medical doctors’ seen on the report forms- Dr. Balla Mohammed, Dr. Gamji A and Dr. Bello Yau are not ‘medical doctors’ on their staff list.

  “It is not the professional duty of medical doctors to carry out routine and or specialised medical laboratory tests on patients’ samples, neither is it their duty to approve or sign such results as seen on the report forms. This is the professional responsibility of medical laboratory scientists registered and licensed to perform such professional duties. The purported laboratory reports must have emanated from quacks or persons with hidden agenda best known to them.

The development further confirms why strict regulatory activities of all health professionals should be strengthened so as to flush out quacks and illegal activities in Nigerian health system.”

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