Latest update February 17th, 2025 9:42 PM
Feb 05, 2025 News
Kaieteur News- The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation’s (GPHC) Pathology Laboratory on Tuesday received certification for its compliance with the national GYS 170:2021 standards.
The certification coincided with World Cancer Day. At a simple ceremony held at GPHC’S New Market Street location, manager of the pathology laboratory, Marcea Comacho, said the lab provides a crucial service in both anatomical and clinical pathology and plays a vital role in the diagnosis of diseases by analyzing patient tissues, cells, and bodily fluids.
The anatomical pathology laboratory is at the forefront of disease detection, with a wide range of responsibilities. She explained that these include analyzing body fluids, surgical tissue samples, and post-mortem samples to determine the cause of death. It also handles gross pathology, frozen section analysis, histology, cytology, immunohistochemistry, and autopsies, often incorporating a dedicated molecular pathology section for more detailed studies.
Reflecting on the lab’s journey, Comacho said, “I recall a time in 2013 when establishing SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and achieving compliance was a challenge, that’s when I knew, I needed to do something about cancer diagnosis in Guyana. Today, the process of establishing systems is not only encouraged and expected but the resources and commitments are 100 percent provided.”
She added, “Thank you to the dedicated team that made this certification possible.”
Additionally, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony emphasized the laboratory’s growing importance in diagnosing various cancers, an area where the country has made considerable progress.
“Before this lab was opened, we (Health sector) were very contended to just know that you had some pathology whether it’s a breast sample or whatever it is, but very often we weren’t able to understand what type, now with all histopathology services that we have here, we can do a lot of differentials which makes a big difference in how we treat,” Dr. Anthony said.
Dr. Anthony explained that the pathology laboratory plays a vital role in diagnosing diseases by analyzing tissues, cells, and body fluids noting that it focuses heavily on identifying prevalent cancers in Guyana, such as breast, cervical, prostate, and rectal cancers.
Dr. Anthony also pointed out the strides being made in early detection, such as the implementation of HPV testing and future plans to screen for anal and rectal cancers.
“This year, we are planning to start a programme to screen for anal, rectum cancers, so the four major cancers that we have in the country, we start doing something about it but this lab will help us if we need to do those differentials,” the health minister said.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GPHC, Robbie Rambarran, said while the hospital has achieved this important certification, more is yet to come.
“I am hoping just by the end of the second quarter that we will have our ISO (International Organization for Standardization) accreditation, just to say we are already on stream with this, we have several meetings, we had with the Jamaican Credit Association, and …Canada accreditation association and we had decided to go with … we went through their proposals and so those work are ongoing,” he said.
The CEO recalled that after being with the hospital for over 20 years, and returned in 2021, he noticed that the pathology lab had remained the same. The lab had developed an association primarily with autopsies and the deceased, causing many to overlook its crucial role in the early diagnosis of diseases.
“Now we are here and with more automotive process, we are able to do faster [tests], there are diagnosis that we can fast track and have them [done], depends on the urgency some of the physicians requested,” Rambarran said.
Speaking of the significance of the certification, Executive Director of the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) Trevor Bassoo pointed to the importance of certification particularly in the areas of quality assurance, consistency and credibility.
“Certification provides quality assurance, credibility and consistency in meeting guidelines and specifications aimed at consumers satisfaction it also provides a competitive advantage to certified products and businesses and it helps to mitigate risk by requiring organization to follow best practices,” Bassoo stated.
The Executive Director said that GPHC’s pathology laboratory is the second medical laboratory to receive certification under the GNBS programme.
“In addition, this laboratory is now the 32nd medical laboratory to be certified under the National Standard GYS 170, the requirements for operation of a laboratory and the national standard to which laboratories are certified allow these facilities to develop a comprehensive management system, which can be effectively be monitored by the laboratory itself and by regulatory bodies,” he said.
Notably, the GYS 170 was revised in 2021 to align with the International Standard for Calibration and testing laboratories (ISO IEC 17025) standards, taking locally certified laboratory one step closer towards international certification and accreditation.
(GPHC Pathology Lab earns GNBS certification on World Cancer Day)
Feb 17, 2025
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