Mbarara Hospital’s clinical laboratories attain international accreditation

Mbarara, (UG): The staff at Western Uganda’s biggest facility, Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital(MRRH) are on cloud nine after the hospital’s Medical Laboratory made it to the list of those accredited internationally.

Sanctioned by The South African National Accreditation (SANAS), the accreditation certificate was unveiled by the Hospital Director, Dr Celestine Barigye in a press conference held at the facility’s boardroom on Thursday afternoon.

Dr Barigye was accompanied by Ms Sarah Mulongo, the Principal Hospital Administrator; Mr Ojom Francis, Senior Hospital Administrator and the Laboratory team led by their Manager Mr Robert Wagubi.

Mr Wagubi described the accreditation as one of the great achievements attained by his department under the leadership of Dr Celestine Barigye.

“I thank you the Director together with your administration for the support you have been rendering to our department from the word go. We promise that we shall not compromise the standard”, Wagubi said.

Wagubi, a Medical Laboratory Specialist reminisces about days when samples were processed in an unpleasant room. The narrative changed with the completion of Clinical Laboratories. He further reassured the general public of the accuracy of the laboratory results.

“This means when you carry out any tests from our laboratory you can use the same medical results to start treatment from Mount Sinai Hospital, Mayo Clinic, The Johns Hopkins Hospital or in any other world-class facility,” he said.

However, the staff and the general public are challenged to ensure that the quality management system is upheld or else the certification can be revoked.

“When you publish a story that you conducted a test at our Laboratory but you were given wrong results and it is ascertained to be the truth, this raises a lot of questions”, he adds.

Mr Stephen Ralph Wanok, the Hospital’s Laboratory Quality Manager describes this as an early Christmas gift adding that it was a concerted effort as he appeals to the staff not to compromise the set standard.

To Wanok, the Laboratory which currently offers about 100 tests attracts over 300 clients daily and with this achievement, the number is likely to surge.

In his speech, Dr Celestine Barigye described this as an indication that the institution has a quality system in place that reduces wastage through effective corrective and preventive actions. 

The accreditation journey started way back in 2013 under the Stepwise Laboratory Improvement Process Towards Accreditation (SLIPTA) program.

Dr Barigye acknowledged the support of the Government of Uganda and  USAID Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital Strengthening Activity.

“We have two big laboratories. Clinical Laboratory constructed by the Government of Uganda and Research and Histopathology Laboratory from the Americans which was commissioned by the USAID Mission Director Mr Richard Nelson and Permanent Secretary Ministry of Health Dr Diana Atwine on behalf of the government”, he said.

On the sustainability, Dr Barigye said they are confident with a dedicated team of medical laboratory personnel though he tasked the department leadership to jealously guard the accreditation status.

Currently, Mbarara Referral Hospital is the only Regional Hospital in the western part of the country offering super-specialized services including special laboratory investigations.