Cuts looming as Quebec details medical lab centralization

Quebec’s medical lab technicians are bracing for major job cuts after provincial officials revealed details of a plan to centralize all medical laboratories and reduce the number of technicians by 10 to 20 per cent, according to a union leader from one of the largest associations representing technicians.

Hospital staff and union representatives were informed Wednesday how the Quebec government plans to implement its Optilab project, but the project was unveiled under a cloud of suspicion as growing numbers of health-care workers and politicians have been calling for a moratorium on the plan until serious concerns with it can be addressed.

Carolle Dubé, president of the APTS union representing some 5,000 lab technicians, said Health Minister Gaétan Barrette is accelerating plans for Optilab as calls are coming in from all regions of the province demanding the government put the brakes on the project.

“We have not been reassured by the information we received today,” Dubé said. “We have obtained no guarantee that the samples will be transported safely.”

But government officials said Wednesday the Optilab plan will eventually save about $75 million a year and will standardize diagnostic services based on best practices.

Nicole Déry, vice-president of APTS, said the plan is worrisome.

“There are aberrations that make no sense, such as transporting samples from Abitibi-Témiscamingue to the MUHC (McGill University Hospital Centre).” Some samples will have to travel as far as 550 kilometres, she said.

We have obtained no guarantee that the samples will be transported safely.

There will be 11 service clusters throughout the province; lab analyses in Montreal will be centralized at the MUHC and the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal.

There are 4,400 medical lab technicians in the province and more than 1,300 in greater Montreal, and Déry said the plan triggers doubts about how well the lab system can function after so many jobs are slashed or how well the Optilab system can work when it will rely on transporting test samples, sometimes great distances.

Caroline Gingras, a spokesperson for the health ministry, said in an email the decrease in the workforce will be spread over three to five years, most of it through attrition and retirements.

Any employees affected will be “supported,” she said, and all collective agreements will be respected.

The goal is to optimize the organization of labs in Quebec, and it will have no effect on care, she said.

A petition with 20,000 signatures asking for a moratorium on the project was deposited at the National Assembly last week, saying care could be greatly compromised by transporting millions of samples a year that could get lost or ruined.

But Gingras said there will be a “traceability system” to ensure no samples are lost and the integrity of samples will be maintained with proper temperatures during transport that will be timely.

Amir Khadir, an MNA for Québec Solidaire, said these kinds of economies of scale might be beneficial to private labs, but they are not beneficial to patients.

“This is another deplorable act by the Liberal government, which is obsessed with budgetary questions,” he said Wednesday.

Déry said the risk of losing or compromising samples is high when they are transported.

“You can’t always duplicate these biopsies. Sometimes they need to be taken from a precise location,” she said. “It could be a disaster.”