Medical testing centres in Jamaica are not now scrutinised by the local authorities, but some facilities like the Kingston based Biomedical Caledonia Laboratory Limited have sought affiliation with overseas oversight bodies to safeguard their integrity.

There are some 177 testing centres and medical labs across Jamaica. The ministry of health has acknowledged its own deficiency in failing to monitor them, but is now pursuing corrective legislation.

In the meantime, some labs have sought to benchmark their operation to international standards, and have made arrangements for other institutions abroad to monitor the quality of their results.

Biomedical says it has an affiliation with two entities, and “has for many years been undergoing quarterly proficiency testing” under the American College of Physicians’ Medical Laboratory Evaluation Programme (MLE) and the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC).

Both agencies “subject our organisation to the most rigorous evaluation in quality and excellence in proficiency,” said managing director Barbara Hendriks, who produced MLE Certificates of Enrollment for three years, up to 2005, to back her statement.

“We at Biomedical voluntarily signed up for these programmes, as we recognise the importance of evaluation and quality assurance and the need for the testing practices of laboratories to be monitored constantly.”