Ghana’s public medical laboratories are losing an estimated GH₵56,000 in annual revenue each due to chronic reagent and consumable stockouts, with facilities left without critical diagnostic supplies for nearly half the year, according to new data presented at a national laboratory managers’ conference.
The findings were shared by Dr. Laud Anthony Basing, lecturer at the Department of Medical Diagnostics, College of Health Sciences, KNUST, Founder and CEO of Incas Diagnostics, during the 5th Annual General Meeting of the Society of Medical Laboratory Managers, Ghana (SMLM-G), held under the theme “Advancing Quality Medical Laboratory Services Through Sustainable Financing and Human Resource Management.”
Delivering the keynote presentation, Dr. Basing urged stakeholders to stop treating medical laboratories as mere cost centres and instead recognise them as vital business entities requiring sustainable financing and deliberate strategic management.
His address was built around a comprehensive, data driven analysis of the diagnostic gap facing Ghana’s health system, drawing on research conducted across 89 laboratories.
Stark Diagnostic Funding Gap Exposed by Data
The research revealed a striking disparity in how funding protections are applied across different parts of the health system. While hospital pharmacies benefit from safeguards under the National Drug Revolving Fund, laboratories operate with far less financial protection, a gap that shows up directly in how long facilities go without essential supplies.
“Essential medicines in hospital pharmacies were unavailable for an average of 24 days in a year due to protected funding under the National Drug Revolving Fund, while laboratory reagents and consumables experienced stockouts averaging an alarming 161 days per year.”
Dr. Laud Anthony Basing,
According to Dr. Basing’s findings, the imbalance means many laboratories spent close to half the year unable to conduct essential diagnostic tests, leaving patients without access to timely results even when doctors ordered them.
He said this translates directly into lost revenue and compromised patient care, with the annual loss per laboratory estimated at GH₵56,000, a figure he presented as clear evidence of the systemic underfunding plaguing diagnostic services relative to other areas of the health system.
He argued that the disparity was not simply a funding oversight but a structural blind spot in how Ghana’s health financing system prioritises different categories of care, one that has left laboratories chronically exposed compared to pharmacies operating under stronger protections.
To address the bottlenecks uncovered by his research, Dr. Basing proposed the establishment of protected diagnostic funding lines, modelled on the safeguards already in place for essential medicines, arguing that laboratories deserve the same level of financial ring-fencing that has helped stabilise drug availability in hospital pharmacies.
“We must begin to treat diagnostic financing with the same urgency and protection we have given to medicines, because a laboratory that cannot test is a laboratory that cannot save lives.”
Dr. Laud Anthony Basing,
He also called for mandatory training for laboratory personnel in procurement, supply chain management and financial forecasting, stressing that many of the stockouts documented in his research stemmed not only from inadequate funding but also from gaps in how laboratories planned and managed their supply needs.
Idle Equipment Despite Missing Reagents
Beyond funding and training, Dr. Basing highlighted a troubling paradox emerging from his data: state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment sitting unused not because it was broken, but because laboratories lacked the reagents needed to operate it.
He argued that this represents a doubly wasteful outcome, where government and development partners have already invested in modern equipment, yet patients still cannot access timely diagnostic testing because of missing consumables.
He called for deliberate investments in human resource capacity as a complement to equipment investment, warning that without adequately trained staff managing supply chains and forecasting demand, even well-funded equipment procurement drives would continue to yield poor returns for the health system.
Dr. Basing’s presentation formed part of a wider conversation at the AGM about the state of Ghana’s laboratory services, with the Ghana Health Service separately disclosing that only four of 25 public laboratories currently undergoing accreditation have attained accredited status.
Officials at the event also pointed to efforts by the Ministry of Health to work with the Ministry of Finance and the National Health Insurance Authority to improve reimbursement rates and formally ring-fence laboratory reagent lines, an approach that echoes the financing reforms Dr. Basing’s research suggests are urgently needed.
Business Case for Diagnostic Investment
Taken as a whole, Dr. Basing’s submission reframed the conversation around laboratory funding from one of routine budget allocation to one of measurable business loss and missed healthcare opportunity.
By quantifying both the scale of stockouts and their financial cost, his presentation offered laboratory managers and policymakers concrete figures to anchor further advocacy for sustainable financing reforms.
With his research now part of the national discussion on strengthening medical laboratory services, stakeholders at the SMLM-G AGM face the task of translating the data into concrete policy shifts, particularly around protected funding lines and workforce training, if Ghana’s laboratories are to close the diagnostic gap Dr. Basing’s findings have laid bare.
READ MORE: Mahama Records 72% Approval in First Longitudinal Poll
