Moncton doctors oppose New Brunswick lab service changes

Doctors at a hospital in Moncton are speaking out against the provincial government's planned changes to laboratory services they say could affect patient care. The multi-phase plan would result in some tests being shipped to other hospitals in the city or other parts of the province, which doctors say could increase the time it takes to get results. 

About 280 medical and dental staff of the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre are opposed to changes expected to be implemented over the next several years, several physicians said at a news conference Tuesday.
Dr. Luc Cormier, a cardiologist at the Dumont, said they want the changes halted and to instead focus on improving existing labs. "I think we need to maintain that plan rather than doing a very, very drastic change to a whole lab organization for our province in our hospitals and in the long run that will impact patient care," Cormier told reporters.

The plan, according to an internal document obtained earlier this month by CBC News, shows phase one starting this fall. It involves shipping all outpatient blood samples to Fredericton and Bathurst for testing.  A second phase would see the expansion of the microbiology lab at the Dumont, which would become the provincial public health laboratory handling routine microbiology testing. This phase would also involve transferring hematology and chemistry samples from the Dumont to the Moncton Hospital for testing, according to a news release from the doctors. The Dumont would only retain what the news release describes as a "'stat lab' for major emergencies." A third phase, which the news release says could start in 2026, could consist of centralizing all pathology-related services at the Moncton Hospital and Saint John Regional Hospital. The doctors said this would affect tests for cancer patients at the Dumont, which has a major oncology centre.
The doctors rejected suggestions the changes would have no impact on patient care...Read more

Do you agree with these physicians' point of view?