St Augustine Medical Laboratory, MIK-ARL building, St Augustine, Trinidad, has attained ISO 15189 accreditation status with a scope of 124 tests.
The accreditation took the best part of five years to accomplish and was strictly voluntary.
This is because there is no legislation or national standards to which medical laboratories must comply in order to operate in Trinidad and Tobago.
The goal of being internationally accredited was down to the laboratory's medical director, Dr Bal Ramsaran, who has a passion for quality and insists on maintaining the highest level of standards.
St Augustine Medical Laboratory and its four collection centres have been accredited by the Quality Management Programme - Laboratory Services (QMP-LS), which is the laboratory accreditation arm of the Ontario Medical Association, Canada.
In the Caribbean it is very difficult and almost impossible to maintain world-class standards.
It is hoped that St Augustine Medical Laboratory, having attained ISO 15189 accreditation, will now be used as the Reference Medical Laboratory in the Caribbean.
