Laboratory medicine plays a fundamental role in ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of health care systems and making possible timely diagnoses and operations. However, in the Sub-Saharan African region it is frequently of poor quality, due in part to insufficient economic resources, in part to a lack of personnel trained in using technical diagnostic tools, and in part to the difficulties of transporting and supplying materials.

This study analyzed four hospitals in three countries where Doctors with Africa is active with health care projects – Uganda (Aber), South Sudan (Lui and Yrol) and Sierra Leone (Pujehun) – in order to evaluate the diagnostic laboratory services available in the health centers there and compare them with the standard values.

Its findings highlight the urgent need to intervene in this oft-neglected area of health care, making basic changes to prevent the waste of resources (sterilizing and using tools appropriately, guaranteeing the transport of and cataloguing available materials and tools) even before attempting to modify protocols and procedures, thus making it possible for laboratory medicine to evolve in a sustainable manner in lower-income countries as well.