College of Medical Laboratory Science writes to President over private-sector labs doing PCR tests at BIA

College of Medical Laboratory Science Sri Lanka President Ravi Kumudesh has written to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, requesting him to investigate reasons for recommending private-sector laboratories to conduct rapid PCR testing in the airport while resources are available at the Ministry of Health. 

Following is the text of the letter which was sent to the Minister of Health, Ministry Secretary, and Director-General of Health Services.

This has reference to the letter issued to the Civil Aviation Authority on 9 August 2021 by the Ministry of Health Secretary, with the subject of ‘Setting up laboratories at the airport to facilitate UAE rapid PCR test requirements’.

Rapid molecular assays are a new type of molecular diagnostic test to detect viral RNA or nucleic acids in approximately 20-40 minutes. There are 16 rapid PCR units already available in the country at the Government institutes, which have been donated by generous donors.

As a result of our request made, your honoured acceptance received to release the budget for another 30 units of rapid PCR. During the first week of June 2021, the Ministry of Health called tenders (tender reference D/LS/PCR/Point of Care/2021) for 14 units of rapid POCT RT-PCR on the basis of giving priority to companies that can provide it short-term on urgent need. It is very surprising to see that the final decision of this tender is on hold yet. It is highly suspicious of the reason behind delaying the final decision for this tender, even though the bidding period was as short as three to five days. Hence a reasonable suspicion arises whether some of the authorities in the Ministry of Health are procrastinating until the friendly parties get the opportunity, by giving enough time to register new instruments, without giving due consideration to the tenders that were finalised in the first week of June.

Further, we have noticed that in the recent letter submitted by the MOH to the Civil Aviation Authority, a private laboratory, which has been blacklisted in China due to its erroneous reports, is also included. This laboratory has been continuously nominated by MOH in many incidents without considering the impact it made to the health system by issuing erroneous reports. In the same letter, an NMRA unapproved instrument is recommended for rapid PCR. If this instrument produces erroneous test results, that responsibility must be taken by the recommended party since the quality is not evaluated under the NMRA committee.

Recommending private sector laboratories and NMRA unapproved instruments should not be the responsibility of the MOH when the foreign employee heroes (Rata Viruwo) suffer greatly since UAE mandates pre-departure rapid PCR tests for Sri Lankans returning for work.

As a responsible health professional organisation, we strongly disagree with the recommendation of an unapproved instrument and private sector lab to conduct tests, since there are 16 rapid PCR units successfully running in optimum condition at the Government institutes and a tender for another 14 rapid PCR units is on hold even while having the President’s approval.

Hence, we kindly request that you consider us to provide the rapid PCR instruments to conduct the required tests as we have the capability to conduct tests free of charge for our foreign employee heroes.

However, it is unfortunate to see some deceitful acts of the authorities in the guise of controlling COVID-19. Hence, we kindly request your honoured intervention to carry out the necessary investigations to find out the parties who are trying to sabotage the country’s health system and embarrass the Government.