Festaconline had the opportunity to have a chat with Prince Elochukwu Adibo , Biomedical Scientist and Laboratory Director , El Lab limited Festac.
Growing Up
Prince Elochukwu Adibo had his Primary School education in New Haven Primary School Enugu, he also obtained his first leaving certificate from there before moving to federal government college.
Challenges in Running El-Lab
Prince Elochukwu Adibo explaioned that an organization that has run for almost 20 years shows we are not here to joke and we keep on improving. Which we agree.
A Major Challenge is Need for Expansion
In order to keep expanding products and services , this it requires Funds. In the health sector, fund requirement is huge which runs into 100 of millions of Niara.
We need the government to support like giving facilities. Also the Rigorous bottle necks are so much and they get so discouraging
Another Challenge is Cohesion.
We need Cohesion from Government agencies who go about collecting one fee or the other.
The government should let people know what is needed and why it should be paid as most of the time these things are quite discouraging.
El Lab is an organization that employs not less than 40 Nigerians , thereby taking off the stress of unemployment from the society so the government should proffer support and relief’s.
Another Challenge is Patronage
Like Government patronage, Corporate patronage and of course, there should be some apathy in terms of referrals based on quality not on affinity or inducements.
El lab is proudly one out of the Three ISO accredited laboratories around, so the community should be happy to have is in their midst and happy to receives such services from us without any further things attached to it.
Power is also a major challenge , there is a lot of consumption of diesel daily in order to run our machines , equipments even when the power is available the current is so low and we cant risk our machines
El-lab offers at least 12 hours service in a day , 9 out the 12 hours is run on Generator , 1.5 hours on Inverter and the rest we test to use Provided Power by PHCN , but when not stable we switch over to generators.
We believe if these things can be improved upon , things would be better and give us a sigh of huge relief , conserve funds and ensure staff welfare , other things that demand support would be attended to.
The issue most times is maintenance, it would be nice to see the facility painted most times, machines upgraded to a new model , staff trained and retrained regularly this is what keeps the system on international standard.
That is the cost of sustaining an ISO Facility, hopefully we do this with cooperation of people in festac , Amuwo , lagos & Nigeria. It is proudly Nigerians thought with international support but the hands-on is proudly Nigerians.
How long has El-Lab existed in Amuwo Odofin
19 years from 1998 till date.
What would you say Response to services from residents in the community is ?
Its been huge so far, encouraging but of course in every business there is competition but we are happy that in the midst of the facilities springing up , El lab is still standing strong in Amuwo Odofin.
The patronage form the community is encouraging & we are happy about it. We thank them and the facility is for everyone they shouldn’t be scared of coming in . Every time a that is celebrated in health we give out materials , like World Malaria Day , we gave out free Mosquito nets and tests and its for the people and they should benefit from it
As a Medical Scientist, do you involve in Politics
Yes. Everyone should, if not actively but subconsciously its a must. Because the politicians, political groups decides our fate and what happens to us. So we should be conscious and challenged to know who comes into governance because their policies affect us and change all.
We are happy to be involved one way or the other and also to access what they’ve done in th past . Also a s an opinion leader in the community , i am very interest in the politics around our environment both in Amuwo , Lagos State & Back home as well as the entire country.Its what every professional should be.