Letter to the Editor: Supplied but not Supported

Rich Whitworth’s editorial “How Do You Measure Success?” last month struck a chord with me. He posed a question: “Is your nation successful because it has assured the safety of its citizens with high-quality food and drugs (or simply shelter) or because it is rolling out more charitable and advanced programs to help resource-poor nations do the same?” I believe Whitworth was indicating that countries with advanced analytical capability could do more to aid nations that are less fortunate in that regard. And he is half right. But in my country of Ghana, the difficulty for analytical chemists goes beyond the simple lack of analytical equipment.

It is a known fact that science in most developing countries is not so advanced despite several efforts by governmental and non-governmental agencies to support it. In some cases, charitable organizations support governments in their efforts to develop science by financing the purchase of analytical equipment. Equipment that is very much in demand includes gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Receiving help to buy such equipment is certainly a great start, but some of the suppliers who sell the equipment don’t always follow in the same charitable footsteps; for example, by refusing to supply an accessory that renders the equipment unusable through its absence. Indeed, there are currently several types of instrumentation that have become ‘white elephants’ in several laboratories in the developing world. In doing so, they are denying laboratories the full benefit of the contribution of donor agencies and their efforts to support quality research and development in Africa – and they are still failing to line their own pockets in many cases.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that it is illogical to ask for new equipment from donors when the ones supplied earlier sit untouched, having never performed a single analysis. I remember in 2004, the chemistry department at the University of Cape Coast received some analytical equipment to boost research and development in the university. The equipment included GC-MS, FTIR and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) detector and was supplied through the vendor’s African agent in Egypt. But we never received the full complement of accessories and the instrumentation has never been used. In fact, we do not even know what to do with it. In such cases, it is clear that we are not getting value for (our charitable donor’s) money. And so here, I would like to kindly ask both donors and suppliers to ensure that any equipment – and all accessories – are supplied in full and supported with proper training; otherwise, all the effort – and financial support – is for naught.

The lack of adequate maintenance schemes for analytical equipment is another serious challenge to raising our scientific game. When equipment fails, the lack of technical know-how makes it very difficult for us to attempt a repair. We’ve experienced substantial periods of instrument downtime just because a fuse needed changing. I also remember a time when we had some ion-selective electrodes, but once the calibrating solutions ran dry, the set-up was not used again. Why? Because there was no clear method that indicated how we could prepare more solution.

Certainly, some of these difficulties may seem trivial to someone in a well-stocked laboratory with easy access to technical support and almost limitless resources. But their combined affect  on the development of analytical chemistry in the developing world is very real.

To that end, I would like to make a passionate appeal to the international community for continued help. Our doors are wide open to any organization that is prepared to support the development of analytical chemistry in Ghana and other developing nations. It is my sincere hope that better analytical capability will help us to identify most of the human health risk factors that result from the presence of numerous emerging chemicals in our environment. It would also afford us the opportunity to give proper training to our students and start a more positive cycle. But there is a small caveat: simply throwing financial resources at a problem does not always make it go away; we also need support in terms of accessories, consumables and training to ensure that the big investments do not go to waste.