TAU Lab Manager, Mr. Mohammed Amin Uddin.
Even as moves are being made to ensure that the National Reference Laboratory has both equipment and personnel to ensure that it can be self-sufficient, another local organisation is claiming to already have such capacity in place.The organisation in question is the Texila American University [TAU] which recently commissioned a spanking new campus at Providence, East Bank Demerara.
According to TAU Lab Manager, Mr. Mohammed Amin Uddin, “we have the best [medical] laboratory facilities in all [of] the Caribbean Region and we are on par with those in North America and in some cases we can be considered even better because of what we are able to do here.” The laboratory has the capacity to do a variety of pathology tests.
Pathology is a medical specialty that determines the cause and nature of diseases by examining and testing body tissues [from biopsies and pap smears for example] and bodily fluids such as blood and urine.
Although the University’s medical laboratory is currently used to give hands-on training to its students, Uddin informed that it can do so much more.
A section of the TAU laboratory.
The National Reference Laboratory is the main laboratory servicing the public health sector. Although information out of the Public Health Ministry suggests that the Laboratory has the needful facilities for various tests, it has been lacking the necessary personnel to conduct these.
Moreover, the national laboratory has been depending heavily on the Caribbean Public Health Agency [CARPHA] in Trinidad as personnel are trained to conduct the needful tests here.
Currently blood samples containing disease-causing viruses are sent to CARPHA for testing in order for the local laboratory to confirm its diagnosis. But TAU officials are adamant that their laboratory could be utilized instead of CARPHA thus reducing the cost incurred by the Ministry.
