The Hindu : Only three City laboratories accredited

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

Only three City laboratories accredited

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE April 7. Did you know that not one government hospital has an accredited diagnostic laboratory? Not even the high-profile All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

That is because accreditation by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), is purely voluntary.

"There is no law at present to make it mandatory," the NABL Consultant, Clinical Laboratories, A.S.Kanagasabapathy, said here on Monday.

So far, only 29 laboratories nationwide and three in Bangalore, were accredited, he said, after attending a workshop on "Quality Control in Clinical Laboratory Management" at St. John's National Academy of Health Sciences (SJNAHS).

T.Venkatesh, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, SJNAHS, said Bangalore had over 2,000 laboratories. "But at today's workshop, 35 participants vowed to go in for accreditation," he said.

Stressing the need for "quality control in validating results," Dr. Venkatesh said only reliable results would help doctors make correct diagnoses. Wrong tests could do irreversible harm, he said.

Dr. Kanagasabapathy said the NABL came under the Union Ministry's Department of Science and Technology.

"Till 1997, only non-clinical laboratories were accredited," he said.

Clinical laboratories, when accredited, got an ISO/IEC 17025 standardisation and were recognised as competent to test and calibrate.

The fee for accreditation would depend on whether a laboratory was small, medium, or large.

Accreditation would be valid for three years but involved an annual "discipline-wise" review.

Sonal Pandya, Product Manager, Clinical Diagnostic Division of Bio Rad Laboratories, spoke.

For more details, contact Dr. Venkatesh on Ph: 5502341 or 2065058.

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