The Nasarawa State House of Assembly has pledged to address the unemployment and training challenges of the state chapter of the Young Medical Laboratory Scientists Forum of Nigeria.
Mr Usman Labaran-Shafa, Chairman, House Committee on Health gave the assurance while playing host to the officials of the association on Tuesday in Lafia.
Labaran-Shafa, representing Toto/Gadabuke constituency, said that addressing the challenges would ensure effective service delivery in the state.
According to him, addressing the plights of the members will help improve on the health status of the people of the state
The lawmaker promised to present the association’s challenges before other committee members with the view to finding a lasting solution to them.
Earlier, the Chairman of the forum, Ovye Maris, said the visit was to familiarise with the committee members as critical stakeholders and to present some of the challenges of the association to them.
Maris noted that among the needs of the association was the lack of employment opportunities, training and retraining for members.
He said that there was a disparity between the medical laboratory assistance, medical laboratory technician and medical laboratory scientist.
”The three work together but the medical laboratory scientist oversees the activities of the two,” he explained.
The chairman noted that the two would not work effectively without the medical laboratory scientist.
He appealed to the government to understand the different roles of the three medical laboratory staff and give each a priority it deserves when it comes to employment.
Maris further said that there was shortage of medical laboratory scientists across the health facilities in the state and called for recruitment of professionals to fill the existing gap.
He urged the committee to liaise with the management of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital to increase the number of medical laboratory scientists trained annually from two to 15. (NAN)
