Lab Week Guyana:
Laboratory Professionals in Emerging Nation March for Progress
DATELINE: GEORGETOWN, GUYANA (Sunday, April 22) – Steel pan music wafted in the Caribbean breeze. Children kicked soccer balls on the grassy roadside. And 70 Guyanese laboratory professionals marched through the capital city of this coastal South American country to kick off National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week.

Chanting the worldwide theme, “Quality Care from Quality Professionals,” these laboratory professionals had much to celebrate. International relief efforts over the past five years have transformed the medical laboratories in Guyana from chaos to order. Marchers carried a hand-drawn poster depicting “The Past” showing a doctor drawing blood from a patient sitting outdoors, corpses lying nearby. Other signs – including “After the Intervention” and “Accurate results begin with the phlebotomist” – declared a newfound sense of knowledge and progress.

Ellen Hope Kearns, PhD, SH(ASCP), Vice Chair of the ASCP Board of Registry Globalization Committee, was among the dignitaries leading the parade, along with the second highest ranking government official, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, and the Ministry of Health’s Director of Standards and Technical Services, Yvette Irving.

The parade kicked off a week-long celebration of events coordinated by the Guyana’s Ministry of Health, including university lectures; a symposium of speakers from industry, academia and government; and an awards reception with Kearns providing the keynote address.

Kearns commended the Minister of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, for raising standards for both laboratories and laboratory professionals in Guyana. “Through his leadership, Guyana is putting itself not only the on the map of the Caribbean, but also on the map of the world,” she said. “What you are experiencing here in this country today is nothing less than historic.”

Through an agreement with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ASCP is providing training in chemistry and hematology for laboratory professionals from May 28 - June 6 in Guyana. The ASCP-BOR has also begun discussions with Ministry of Health officials to offer international ASCP certification (ASCPi) to laboratory professionals in Guyana.

Guyana is located on northeast coast of South America. It is the continent’s only mainland country whose primary language is English. Culturally and politically, Guyana is a Caribbean nation, having been a founding member of Caricom (the Caribbean Community economic bloc). Guyana is also a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.