New Brunswick doctors raising concerns over lab services – New Brunswick | 24CA News
One by one, well being care professionals spoke to a crowd on the Universite de Moncton on Tuesday, exhibiting their displeasure to a proposed plan that will look to centralize some companies.
Lab companies staff have been informed in early June that plans to vary companies would are available in three phases, with the primary section coming within the fall of 2023.
In a launch to Global News, hospital workers have been informed the adjustments would look as follows:
“Phase 1 would consist of sending outpatient bloodwork from all the province’s hospitals to the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton and Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst.
- Phase 2, whose timing has yet to be determined, would involve two major changes. The first would be the expansion of the microbiology laboratory at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont UHC to become the provincial public health laboratory where
- Phase 3, which could be completed in 2026, would consist of centralizing all pathology-related services at the Moncton Hospital and Saint John Regional Hospital, including blood flow cytometry, in other words, tests related to treating cancers such as leukemia. There would be no further pathology tests detecting cancer at Vitalité Health Network despite the fact that the Dr. Léon-Richard Oncology Centre is part of Vitalité Health Network.”
In an electronic mail, the Department of Health pointed Global News to an August 2022 launch that famous the system wanted to be checked out to “ensure the sustainability of laboratory services.”
“We expect to be facing human resource challenges for laboratory medicine and we will likely also see an increased demand for testing,” mentioned Health Minister Bruce Fitch in August 2022 in a launch.
“We additionally know New Brunswick’s laboratories should be higher linked to supply improved turnaround instances,
The division mentioned that samples are routinely moved across the province with out concern, and that they’re assembly with stakeholders to debate the problem additional
“This kind of model is considered a best-practice and is in line with how systems operate in other jurisdictions,” mentioned spokesperson Sean Hatchard in an electronic mail.
“Doctors are not losing access to laboratories inside local hospitals across the province. Testing will still be completed in local hospitals based on clinical need, and results will continue to be provided in a timely manner.”
Cardiologist Dr. Luc Cormier, who works out of Moncton, mentioned that he was consulted on a number of the proposed adjustments that may very well be put in place. He mentioned that he didn’t really feel he was listened to.
“Transferring tests to different hospitals should probably the exception and not the norm,” he mentioned in a room crowded with Vitalité medical doctors.
“We do already have capabilities of running the tests and a lot of the labs in New Brunswick, at least the ones in Vitalité, have over the past few years streamlined a lot of processes.”
When requested, Liberal well being care critic Rob McKee couldn’t say whether or not or not his occasion would reverse the choice if his authorities got here into energy after the following election however mentioned that the province ought to be listening to the medical doctors within the room.
“I’m just questioning whether or not the Department of Health is listening to the health care professionals,” he mentioned.
Vitalité Health Network mentioned that there had been no closing determination on transferring companies however did say that they’ll take considerations expressed by well being care professionals into consideration.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
