LAHORE, Feb 7: In the absence of any law to regulate the private clinical laboratories’ business, most of them are allegedly conducting tests with ‘doubtful results’ and fleecing people.

These laboratories are supposed to be run by doctors (pathologists), but are mostly being looked after by technicians and technologists. Therefore, the efficacy of the tests carried out under the supervision of under-qualified people remains doubtful. Besides, most of these also lack modern equipment.

“There is no federal or provincial law to monitor the business of private clinical laboratories, which is encouraging non-professional people to open and run such concerns in any part of the country,” Punjab Health Department Director (Monitoring) Dr Muhammad Shakil told Dawn.

“To make the matter worse, no department is authorised to entertain complaints against them (laboratories),” he added. Besides, no official data was available on the number of these laboratories in Punjab, he said.

On the other hand, the health department does not issue licence to a medical store or a pharmacy unless it fulfils certain legal requirements. Besides, the department also continues to monitor the business. “The comparison shows that the government is fully convinced that clinical laboratories don’t need any regulation and monitoring, which implies they are free to play with the lives of citizens,” says a senior doctor.

Health department sources said that though most laboratories mentioned the names of pathologists, histopathologists, molecular biologist and hematologists on their panel list, these experts never visited these concerns. These laboratories also gave share from their income to the doctors or public hospitals’ technicians who referred cases to them, they said.

They said some laboratories had set up their collection centres across the city, especially outside the public-sector hospitals. Some of theses were charging between Rs500 and Rs800 for carrying out blood tests for hepatitis B and C, while the kit used to conduct these tests was available between Rs12 and Rs22 in the market, they added.

The authenticity of the tests carried out by the technicians or technologists is also questionable. The results of blood tests for diagnosis of different diseases carried out by one laboratory often don’t match with those of the other.

A doctor employed at a private organisation told this reporter on the request of anonymity that a private laboratory located near the Jinnah Hospital declared her wife positive for hepatitis B and C. “The laboratory people asked me to repeat the test and again charged from me. The result again appeared positive,” he said. However, on the advice of a colleague, the doctor said, he visited a renowned laboratory which showed negative result. “Had I got my wife treated after accepting the wrong result who would have been responsible for this?” he questioned and said when he contacted the owner of the laboratory, which had conducted the test, he replied that it also could give him the negative result report as all laboratories were functioning in a similar fashion.

The doctor said that he filed a written complaint to the provincial health secretary against the laboratory in question but no action had been initiated against it so far. He pointed out that some laboratories were offering a full package of tests like CBC, HB, AG, HCV, HIV, VDRL and BCR against Rs2,000, which was not possible practically.

Punjab Health Secretary Javed Malik was not available for comments. However, another health official admitted that the department could not take action against the private clinical laboratories for conducting wrong tests or overcharging, as there had been no legal cover for it.