Why paternity test should be mandatory after childbirth – DNA specialist

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, DNA-Harley and Rainbow Specialised Laboratories and Diagnostics, Dr Ademolu Owoyele, shares his thoughts with BIODUN BUSARI on reasons for DNA paternity tests, among other issues

What are the challenges faced by medical doctors in Nigeria?

This is a general and broad question. The challenges of being a doctor, healthcare professional or practising medicine in Nigeria are similar to what obtains in other developing nations. There are challenges in healthcare infrastructure which include inadequacy of the right tools, amenities, and equipment to be able to deliver on one’s job effectively. We all know that Nigerians are some of the brightest minds in the world. We’ve seen this before because when Nigerians go to other countries, they don’t only thrive, they succeed. They are always found among the best professionals anywhere in the world.

This means we have to improve the environment in which these people work to get better results from them. Again, training is another thing; we don’t invest in training. Training, research, and development are needed and they are what will help in advancing our knowledge as a country. For instance, research in this part of the world is limited because of funding. You need research, development, and training. The most recent challenge facing healthcare practitioners in Nigeria is the workforce. At the moment, the country is battling a brain drain. Back in the day, it was just an infrastructural gap. But right now, we have a workforce gap because the health sector doesn’t have the people to do the job.

The majority of capable hands in the healthcare system have relocated to developed countries. We are left with a few capable hands. If you walk into any hospital for treatment, you can’t be guaranteed that you will meet the same doctor who attended to you in the next three months. The reason is that almost every doctor has one exam or the other to travel out of the country to the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, or other parts of the world that one can’t imagine. Also, a lot of doctors are not happy with their pay. The financial reward for practising as a medical practitioner in the country is not encouraging. These are the challenges.

How can these challenges be addressed?

The solutions to these problems are available. The government and stakeholders only need to do the right thing. Everybody knows the solution to some of these issues. These are simple things because they are obvious to the eye. It’s just that our government does not have the political will to revitalise the healthcare sector. The healthcare budget is still within five per cent of Nigeria’s overall budget in comparison to the World Health Organisation’s recommended 15 per cent. Less than one per cent of its Gross Domestic Product shows that we are not ready for a proper healthcare system.

Beyond funding healthcare, we need to invest money in the right places. We need to train our doctors better. Beyond just the pay, there are other ways that healthcare professionals can be motivated by government policies. We need to have a scheme whereby doctors can own houses and cars more conveniently. These are some of the things we need to do. We need to be intentional about our decisions because we need to be able to retain what we have. We should do this to attract those who have left for greener pastures abroad.

Also, we need to open the doors for private-public partnership. We need to give opportunities to available private investments. Doctors in private practice also need to be educated and developed on how to make their healthcare businesses sustainable. That is where training of other private doctors in entrepreneurial skills is essential. When doctors are better trained in entrepreneurial skills, their businesses are better sustained. When their businesses are sustainable, that means we can achieve universal health coverage better, which is the goal of healthcare for the government.

What led to your recent call for the introduction of mandatory DNA paternity tests for the birth registration process?

As a doctor, it’s part of my duties to inform and educate the public. I’m not just trying to blow up an alarm or cause panic among people, but rather to educate the public based on certain things. In our organisation, DNA-Harley and Rainbow Specialised Laboratories and Diagnostics, we realise that our 2024 statistics on DNA paternity showed that out of every 10 people who run DNA paternity tests, almost half of them, which is 47%, are negative.

You can say that half of the people. When I say negative, what I mean is that the father and the child that are being tested do not match. Automatically, that means that the alleged father in this case is not the biological father of the child. This shows that there is a high rate of paternity fraud going on in our society. It is appropriate for people to be informed. This means that there are fathers fraudulently or erroneously going around with children that do not belong to them.

How do you go about this DNA paternity test?

It is confidential, but with many experiences we’ve seen, we have to inform and educate the public on how to go about it. That is why we feel that the DNA paternity test should be made mandatory from the point of birth. Having a DNA paternity test is not only about promiscuity. There is a general belief that the test is based on a suspicion of infidelity from the woman. But let me say that suspicion of infidelity is not the only reason why a DNA paternity test is conducted.

What other reasons could have called for that?

There are so many reasons why DNA paternity tests are done. It can be done to have peace of mind. When people have some doubts about the ownership of their children, they can take the test to clear their doubts. They are also conducted for legal reasons. This includes migration. Some embassies like the UK and the US and others may require paternity tests to ascertain that parents leaving the country are doing so with their biological children they lay claim to. They can’t just allow you to leave with the minors without evidence. No embassy will allow you to go to its country with a child that is probably not yours.

So, they need to confirm that you are the biological parents of that child. Therefore, instead of waiting till that time, you can have your test ready. That’s the reason I said this has nothing to do with suspicion of infidelity. There was a case of a child that did not belong to either of the parents. After the paternity test was conducted, the woman in question was distraught. So, the couple decided to have a maternity test, and the child did not match with the woman as well. That was when the suspicion of a baby swap came in.

Swapping of babies at birth had occurred. We’ve seen these instances due to a lot of child trafficking going on in the country. We live in an ecosystem where there have been reported cases of child trafficking and baby factories. It’s not all cases of DNA paternity that are just about infidelity on the part of the woman. They are done to make the right decisions.

Also, there are cases where DNA paternity tests are done to settle paternity disputes. Maybe two men are laying claims to a particular child; this could warrant a paternity test to sort this out. Another similar reason is when there is a decision on the custody of the child between two parents. Lastly, the paternity test is done for inheritance purposes when there is a decision for a family to let a particular child inherit a property.

Why is there a rise in paternity fraud?

It’s not that paternity fraud is rising. It has been in existence from time immemorial. The only difference is that the DNA paternity tests are exposing them. This happens because of a lot of social misnomers with a lot of people having multiple sex partners. There are factors like the error of commission or omission. This means that there are times when women give birth to children who do not belong to their legal husbands because they do not know, while some are aware.

If a woman gets impregnated by a poor man at a time when a rich man comes to ask for her hand in marriage, then she goes with the rich man. She won’t tell the former man about the pregnancy. The Yoruba adage that says, ‘Only a woman knows the father of all her children’ is not correct nowadays because even the woman does not know many times. We’ve seen it before in our laboratory.

How should men take these paternity frauds if they happen to be negative?

The DNA paternity test also involves counselling. We do pre-counselling and post-counselling sessions. It’s part of the entire process. Counselling is part of the DNA process. It’s not just about conducting the tests. With these, the couples are prepared for the results and how they should go about the results. The people involved will be educated.

A good number of times, there’s a denial stage once it’s negative. But with counselling, the parties face the realities. In addition, there should also be a law that mandates men to play their role once it’s confirmed that they are the biological parents to a particular child so that the child is not just left alone by himself or herself to wallow in emotional pain or trauma. That is why we say the government has roles to play in this thing.

Can DNA paternity tests have errors that make people doubt the results?

The accuracy rate for DNA paternity tests is 99.99% in accredited centres. This is global. We have never had a situation where the results would be faulted.

How expensive is the DNA paternity test?

We know that people used to think that a DNA paternity test is very expensive. That’s why we’re trying to democratise the service by making it affordable. We want it to be within the reach of the common man as much as possible. That’s what we’re trying to do. First of all, there should be accessibility. We created a system whereby we can collect samples from people from almost any state in Nigeria.

That’s the kind of system we’ve created. We are in Lagos, but people can get across to us from Abuja, Kano, Kaduna, Calabar, and others. So, we have improved the accessibility. As regards cost, it is relatively affordable. Gone are the days when people spent a million naira or N500,000 to do a DNA paternity test.

What are the security measures put in place in hospitals to avoid or minimise the swapping of babies?

A lot of hospitals are safe and secure in Nigeria. But of course, we’ve seen incidents of this happen in some places. What we ask for is clinical governance and quality management. For instance, the paediatric ward must have a proper access control system around your entire facility. The pediatric ward is where you have the babies. Nobody should just have access to this place. There should be improvement in the use of technology.

There should be proper training and procedures for hospital staff. Then there must be adequate staff. To prevent the mix-up of babies, there should be a system for appropriate tagging and a unique identifier system immediately after they are born. Then, babies should be introduced to their mothers for identification to reduce human errors. Not all cases are intentional; some may be intentional. The government needs to play its part. There should be a total crackdown on child trafficking.