Lab job losses flagged

MANY old proverbs are still used in contemporary language because they are as relevant today as when they were first coined.

One such proverb is the old saying ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire’.

So often we find that rumours or fears of an impending change eventually come to pass — even in cases when the parties involved vehemently deny that it is happening.

Such has been the experience in Geelong since we first learned of proposed changes at Australian Clinical Labs earlier this year.

Employees, union officials and medical practitioners all saw red flags back in January, warning that cuts to laboratory and administrative teams could be as large as a quarter of the pathology workforce and would result in processing backlogs and delays in patients getting their test results.

However, spokespeople for the labs said most of the restructure would be to nonscientific departments, would only affect non-urgent cases and defended their processes as “standard industry practice”.

Last month, 30 ACL staff members were made redundant resulting in more tests from local patients being sent to the company’s state laboratory in Clayton. The effect in real terms for Geelong patients — as revealed today by Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Victorian branch chair Dr Cameron Loy — has been a much slower turnaround of pathology test results, with tests that would previously have taken two days to complete now being delayed for up to five days.

Furthermore, Dr Loy warned that under this new system GPs would be tempted to send their patients to hospital emergency departments where they were likely to receive their test results quicker.

With emergency departments becoming increasingly clogged with nonurgent cases as it is, the last thing our hospitals need is the extra pressure of people presenting for simple pathology testing because the system isn’t working properly.