Despite only a fraction of existing pathologist fraternity in the State, not happy with the government willing to replace them with specialised pathologists, experts believe that the only way to save lives of thousands of patients is to throw such pathologists out of labs at the earliest.
The experts have not only suspected up to 25 percent non-qualified pathologists signing on reports of patients in various laboratories in the city, but have also raised concerns over the government’s unwillingness to do so by not investigating path labs for their competence.
Patients have also come across all kinds of monetary, mental and physical harassment at many diagnostics centres with late report delivery and confrontations with utterly arrogant and non-professional front office executives and even pathologists day in and day out.
“No one have any idea as to what is the quality of pathology lab reports and who prepares it. The only requirement in getting a patient cured at the earliest is thorough investigation which the patient goes through. If diagnosis is not right, the patient might go through hell only to never return back. The problem here in the State is because there is no mechanism to check whether the pahologist is qualified or not,” said Indian Medical Association (Jharkhand Chapter) Vice President (Headquarter) Dr Govind Das Banerjee on Friday.
Even Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) Hospital Director in-charge RK Srivastava didn’t rule out possibilities of considerable number of pathology laboratories running in the city and elsewhere in the State with no certified pathologists.
He said that even RIMS doctors use to come across minor, but recoverable deviations in tests done at Medal Pathology laboratory running inside RIMS at frequent interval.
“What I mean with certified pathologist is not Medical MSc degree holders which various pathology labs proudly claim to have, but I mean with the one having Diploma or higher degree holder in pathology. The qualitative difference between Medical MSc degree holders and Diploma in Pathology and higher degree holders is that former doesn’t have sufficient knowledge of physiology and latter has it during its MBBS classes. I am a grave advocate of union Government’s directive of Medical MSc degree holders not being allowed to certify pathology reports anymore and they must be replaced by specialized pathologists,” said Srivastava.
Ironically, IMA (Jharkhand) has admittedly no data as to how many pathology labs in city and State are being run without having any specialised pathologists.
“I can say that this is a serious issue which has direct adverse impact on life of lakhs of people in the State. But this is also true that we have never discussed the issue in our meetings in past. We will try to discuss the same as soon as possible,” added Banerjee who also wanted only specialized pathologists in Path labs.
“I am sure big hospitals, be it private or Government owned, understand the seriousness of the issue and they have sufficient number of specialised and certified pathologists. But it is not desirable for me to comment anything negative on my own fraternity. Quality of diagnostics has remained a concern. But it has also remained a concern due to poor quality of machines, not the pathologists,” said Abhishek Jha who owns Pulse Diagnostics and Imaging Centre in city.
“ Wrong diagnosis with blood sugar might also have occurred because the pathologist might have been in sweet memories at the time he was investigating the sample. It may be awkward, but this is true in case of many patients in city and State,” said one of the experts willing not to be named.