Pathology Collapse

In the middle of a bitter pay dispute between APEX members and Awanui Labs, more news has emerged about the crisis in the medical laboratory sector.

Yesterday Radio New Zealand reported that turnaround times for reviewing and reporting pathology slides that may reveal melanoma have ballooned out to as much as eight weeks in two laboratories run by Awanui Labs. The expected KPIs for these Labs sets a maximum turnaround time of two weeks, with an expectation that the vast majority of slides will be reported much sooner than that.

‘This tells us that our once proud medical laboratory system is on the brink of collapse. New Zealanders are already receiving third-world care in a country where they deserve world leading treatment,’ said APEX Advocacy Lead David Munro today.

‘Our members are battling for part of the solution to this crisis,’ continued Mr Munro. ‘We are experiencing a tsunami of experienced scientists and pathologists leaving medical laboratories to take up better paying less stressful jobs anywhere from meatpacking to 9-to-5 jobs in industrial laboratories. Settling the expired collective agreements in the medical laboratory sector with competitive pay increases is now an urgent part of shoring up this small, vital, and vulnerable workforce.’ He concluded.