Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria (MLSCN) Acting Registrar/CEO Mr Tosan Erhabor speaks to OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA on some issues affecting the Council, and the way forward.
Peace has returned to the Council since your appointment, after uncertainties and rancour. To what would you ascribe the development?
It’s evident that we’ve been able to earn the trust and loyalty of members of the staff. As soon as this administration was appointed, the first set of activities was the stakeholders’ meeting. It’s very simple. We asked the stakeholders about the direction they desired their Council to chart and everybody has seen that the consensus is the path we are now following. The issue with us, as leaders, is that we always think we know what the people need. So, the possibility of disconnect is high and acceptability from the people also becomes difficult. We also understand what the unresolved issues were and a root cause analysis was done to understand how to resolve those issues. Consequently, we’ve been working hard to ensure that those critical issues are not only resolved in a fair and equitable manner, but also that there would be no chance of their resurfacing again in the nearest future. Stakeholders appear to have noted the seriousness and sincerity of our efforts and have keyed in, and we are grateful for the support. That is the reason for the peaceful atmosphere that is prevailing within the Council. It is not rocket science; everyone knows that progress or success in Council cannot be attained in an atmosphere of rancour, and since we are expected to bring success and progress to the Council, the sensible thing to do is first to ensure that there is a peaceful and conducive environment.
MLSCN is saddled with regulating training and practice in the profession. How well have you been carrying out this task?
Every practitioner knows that the area you’ve just mentioned is at the heart of the regulatory functions of the Council.This explains why successive managements of Council had taken such assignments seriously although with varying degrees of success. Again, even where any particular management might have tried to reform some of the approaches to make them more effective, the fundamentals remain sacrosanct. In training, we continue to work with the training institutions, as well as the National Universities Commission (NUC), to ensure that the highest standard of training is available to the students, and that such is holistic and accommodating of the emerging body of knowledge. That way, those trained would be able to hold their own anywhere, any day. We also use the tool of Accreditation to ensure due diligence and compliance with guidelines. In the area of practice, we have monitoring, inspection, licensure etc. In both areas, Council has developed and continues to modify the relevant tools to ensure that they remain transparent and effective at all times. However, the Federal Ministry of Health recently asked us to put the inspection of labs on hold until we develop a Protocol for such activity. We have done so and as soon as the document is endorsed by the Ministry, we will commence the inspection and monitoring of labs across the country; we are hoping that that will be soon.
You have a bottom-top administrative agenda anchored on a tripod of Registration, Regulation and Accreditation. How do you intend to fund the Council’s programme since budgetary allocation is getting leaner because of the economic recession?
The truth is that, funding is a challenge not only for Council but also for the entire country. We have already started fund driving activities. Based on our initial consultations, we realised that there were practitioners who had lost confidence in the Council and stopped paying their dues. However, they are more positive with the steps the administration has taken so far. One knotty issue was that they were not receiving practising licences years after payment. Obviously that was not good enough. Thus, one of our first accomplishments was to ensure the possibility of printing the licence online. After payment, which is also supported with a 24/7 Helpdesk via calls, sms, twitter, Facebook and all information on this can be downloaded from our website; phone numbers are there too.
These measures are encouraging many members to pay up and have access to other Council’s services. Furthermore you are aware that Council has various national as well as international collaborations that can be leveraged on. If we are able to even derive non-financial benefits from our collaborations, that would free some resources that can be channelled into other areas. Be assured that we will do whatever is necessary to move this agency forward. The building blocks are there, so it is not as though we are starting from the scratch.
Why do stakeholders call you a “bridge builder” in the profession?
That got me thinking that I could, indeed, be a bridge builder. First, the key to most successful business ventures is good relationships and over the years, within the profession, I have built good relationships. I have worked with the rank and file of the practitioners within the academic and public sectors. I have been mentored by the founding fathers of the profession and I have also mentored many younger professionals who are now in different sectors of the economy. Over the years, I have tried to sustain the relationships I have built with these people. Also, I treat everybody with respect which has made me to establish trust with most people. So, if I’m described as a bridge builder, I don’t think that such a reference is far off the mark.
Moreover, one should be able to build bridges even beyond the medical laboratory services sector as that is one of the ways that we can help end the atmosphere of bickering or rancour that exists within the health sector. If building a bridge is what it takes to help the sector live up to the true essence of its creed, then I am, indeed, willing to shoulder such a responsibility.
I understand you held a stakeholders meeting where you said manpower would be the strength of your administration. That appears to be a positive expression. Tell us how you intend to maintain the trust and loyalty of the staff.
Yes, that is the focal point of this administration. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I have risen through the ranks and spent several years with the organisation, thus I’m able to connect emotionally and professionally with the workforce. Again, bear in mind that the manpower within the Council are also stakeholders, they are the internal stakeholders. The strength of any administration or leadership is the followership. By involving the workforce, in setting strategic directions, it will motivate them to own whatever program that is being rolled out. Therefore, trust and loyalty would be earned by default. At any rate we are working to develop a system that rewards high performing staff while encouraging other staff to also become high performing. We will do our best to motivate staff within the limits of the agency’s resources. But don’t also forget that it is not only financial reward that motivates, so we have to look at the issue holistically. However in doing so, management expects staff to be disciplined, hardworking and loyal as envisaged in the Public Service rules and in accordance with the corporate culture of the Council. It is a form of social contract, management will do what is necessary to encourage and motivate staff, while staff would not only reciprocate but would be seen to be doing so. It doesn’t get fairer than that, does it?
You have kicked off e-licensing with iHRIS to the delight of practitioners. How prepared are you to handle the envisaged operational challenges in the nearest future?
Of course, we are prepared. However, one major challenge is the infrastructure to sustain the e-licensing, because it is one scheme that is creating a lot of buzz within the profession. For example, since August when we rolled out the e-licencing platform, over 400 licences have been processed through it. You see what I mean? That is also evidence that we are doing things differently. Another challenge is in institutionalising our operational processes. We are working with our internal IT team and some consultants, but with the potential for skill transfer. In other words, we hope that in future, the internal IT team can support our internal processes and any further development in the process on their own. Bear in mind that we are working hard to automate most of our processes. Secondly, we are developing standard operating procedures (SOPs) such that we can perform our constitutional role in such a way that we would have a standard process with minimal interference whenever leadership changes. That is, institutionalising our operations, something that is not a custom in this country.
It is public knowledge that there has been a cold war among members of the Association of Medical Laboratory Technicians/Assistants (AMELTAN), which led to two factions. What is your plan to reconcile them ?
Our administration has already commenced reconciliatory meetings with the two factions. The first meeting took place at MLSCN headquarters and far-reaching decisions were reached. I am looking forward to the next meeting with feedback from the factions. It is worthy to note that the reconciliatory meetings had in attendance representative of the National President of AMLSN, elders of the profession and other relevant stakeholders. Having said that, it is equally important that the leaders of the factions realise that they must give peace a chance for a house divided against self is doomed.Again, to the extent that the fragmentation of the association has implications for unity, peace and progress in the larger health sector, we would keep doing our best to reconcile the factions.
Despite advances in the profession, it is believed that Medical Laboratory Science is still faced with challenges. Could you highlight some of them and the solution?
Every profession has its own challenges, and Medical Lab Science is not immune to such. Perhaps the biggest of them all is quackery which, beyond rhetoric, has become a menace, a cankerworm that has continued to stunt the growth of the profession. Although the problem is as old as the profession, the Council under my watch is determined to fight it to a standstill, as we have zero tolerance for quackery. The issue is that over the years, we’ve fought quackery with the same methods, which do not seem to be potent enough to combat the menace. The old method was about working with the other agencies of the government, especially the police and the professionals to identify unregistered facilities and practitioners. Now we intend to deploy other methods, to complement the previous ones; hopefully, they would us help to win the fight against quackery. For example, rather than be chasing the quacks all over the place, which is like wrestling with pigs in the mud, and once you leave, they return to business as usual, we are going to deploy ICT in the fight against quackery. If we say that quackery is like cancer, then it also makes sense that we treat it as such, and one way of doing that is to starve it of blood, the source of livelihood. Deploying ICT means that we would empower the service users through communication to keep away from certain unlicensed practitioners and unapproved facilities, and also to discretely report them to Council for proper sanctions. That would help us go after them in a targeted manner rather than embark on some wild goose chase that costs a lot in terms of time, energy and financial resources whereas the results are minimal and fleeting.
