Lab firm to slash pathologist numbers

The winner of Auckland's long-running community blood-testing row plans to cut the number of pathologists by more than a quarter.

Labtests Auckland spokesman Peter Fitzgerald said last night the company intended to employ 17.2 fulltime-equivalent pathologists when it took over the region's community laboratory services from Diagnostic Medlab, possibly in August.

DML chief executive Arthur Morris said that after excluding work for the breast and cervical cancer screening programmes, which were not part of the community contract, he employed around 24 fulltime equivalent pathologists.

Dr Fitzgerald said that based on his assessment of the workload, his own experience as medical director of sister company Southern Community Laboratories, and talking to other pathologists, including those at DML, he was confident that 17.2 would be enough.

The service provided by Labtests would be "at least as good" as DML's.

But Dr Morris said such a cut would make it hard to maintain the present ready access of GPs to pathologists when they wanted to discuss a patient's test results - or it would extend turnaround times for tissue tests.

Their disagreement follows DML staff starting a new campaign against the changes, which they consider pose risks to patients, and Labtests' announcement yesterday that it had hired as its medical director a senior DML pathologist, Dr Richard Lloydd.

Auckland's three district health boards awarded the $70 million-a-year contract to new company Labtests in 2006, saying they would save $15 million a year. DML was to be dumped.

The High Court overturned the contract, on application by DML, but the Court of Appeal reinstated it last year. The Supreme Court ended the case last month when it refused to hear an appeal from DML.

The boards are now devising plans to ensure a smooth transition.

Dr Lloydd's appointment is a coup for Labtests, given his previous opposition to the contract. In 2006 said he would not work as a pathologist in Auckland if it were upheld.

"This is because I disagree with the cut-price model being introduced and the way money is being siphoned from my specialty into other areas of health," he wrote in a letter published in the Listener.

Dr Lloydd declined to be interviewed last night, but in a Labtests statement he said it was time to move on.

He noted that Labtests, now fully owned by Australian company Healthscope, was different from when it won the contract - an apparent reference to the departure of then-chief executive and part-owner Dr Tony Bierre, a former Auckland District Health Board member and former DML pathologist.

"... I want to continue to work in community pathology in Auckland and with Labtests' contract upheld and in place with the DHBs, Labtests is where my future is," Dr Lloydd said.

His appointment has upset former colleagues at DML, where a picture of him campaigning against the contract hangs on a wall.

"It has made staff angry," said DML's immunology manager, medical scientist David Haines. "They see him as a bit of a turncoat.

"People are so loyal to this place," he said, "that they are not going to leave till the absolute end."