LAB NOT LEAVING
Business as usual at Victoria County Memorial Hospital: Nova Scotia Health Authority
Business as usual at Victoria County Memorial Hospital, says Nova Scotia Health Authority.
The Nova Scotia Health Authority says it’s business as usual at the Victoria County Memorial Hospital in Baddeck.
Concerns were raised in recent weeks about the possibility of the local hospital’s laboratory service closing at the end of the year, however the health authority confirmed that won’t be the case.
“There is no intent to take lab services away (at Victoria County Memorial Hospital),” said Shauna Thompson, senior director of pathology and laboratory medicine for the health authority.
“As far as blood collection services for patients, we have no intentions to change any of that and physicians will still have access to testing and will ensure that we provide results in an appropriate turnaround time.”
Although there will be no disruption in blood collection at the Baddeck facility, Thompson said how the health authority delivers the services may look different in the future.
“(It will be) behind the scenes (changes), patients using our services for blood collection won’t see any noticeable differences, physicians will still get their results in an appropriate turnaround time and they will still have access to whatever testing that they need,” she said.
“I can use examples from other jurisdictions where we’ve changed their service delivery model in response to shortages of staff, so we put the service in place to ensure that the stat and urgent testing needed to support onsite clinical services are there and available — that’s just an example.”
Laboratory service at the hospital will not be outsourced, but some routine, non-urgent, testing will continue to be referred to the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney.
All urgent testing required to support onsite clinical services will still be performed at the Victoria County hospital and right now there are no plans to change it.
“It’s really about improving the sustainability and ensuring that into the future that testing needs for the community are provided and for patients that they have access to blood collection services,” said Thompson.
“We’ll ensure that tests are available onsite that need to remain onsite.”
Currently, blood collection at the Victoria County Memorial Hospital takes place Monday to Friday. According to the health authority’s website, collection takes place from 8-10 a.m., with patient sample drop-off hours from 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Blood collection service is not available on holidays.
Thompson said there are no current issues with lab services in Baddeck, noting that staffing is “stable” right now.
“We have experienced at other sites (issues) and it’s particularly problematic in the rural sites, where we only have a few staff working there and as staff retires it’s very difficult to recruit to those rural sites,” she said.
“We have had instances (at other sites) where we’ve found ourselves in a position where we had no staff available with very little notice and had to divert stat and urgent testing to other closest facilities — we’re trying to prevent getting into that situation in these rural areas.”
Thompson couldn’t confirm how many retirements were upcoming at the Victoria County Memorial Hospital, noting the health authority monitors projected retirement numbers across the province.
“We’re trying to proactively plan for that. I don’t have a number right off the top of my head, but there is a large line of retirements (across the province) coming up, and we’re trying to plan.”
Thompson said changes to the delivery of services are in “preliminary discussions” right now and that there is still a large amount of engagement and planning needed.
“The services that our patients and physicians need will be available.”