Northland fears losing medical lab

By Angela Gregory

WHANGAREI - A proposal to tender out Government-paid medical laboratory work has renewed fears that Northland pathology services could shift to Auckland.

Last year, a nationwide shortage of pathologists fuelled concern in Northland that such services, including autopsies, would end up contracted to Auckland.

A Northland pathologist, Dr Desmond Reddy, yesterday expressed further concern that the proposed tendering of laboratory work could see monopoly Auckland laboratories undercutting regional ones.

The Health Funding Authority is reviewing the financing and provision of pathology services in New Zealand.

On Friday, Far North doctors, health groups, police, iwi representatives and funeral directors met in Kaitaia to discuss the risks of cuts to Northland pathology services.

An authority manager, Philip Pigou, said that although tendering was being considered, there was no intention of redirecting Northland pathology work to Auckland.

But Dr Reddy said such verbal assurances should be treated with a great deal of scepticism. "However, if an assurance came from the Health Minister offering stability and certainty for laboratory services, then I would feel confident of hiring another pathologist, and Northlanders would not feel so hard done by."

As manager of Northland's only community medical laboratory, Dr Reddy said he was the sole fulltime pathologist in the region.

The Whangarei Area Hospital had for the past four years tendered out its pathology laboratory work to an Auckland provider.

Dr Reddy missed the valued collegial support of other fulltime pathologists in Northland.

He compensated by regularly travelling to Auckland to meet other pathologists to share expertise, and often took medical samples for second opinions.

Dr Reddy said that if all the region's pathology services were lost to Auckland, autopsies could no longer be performed locally.

That was unacceptable, especially since about one-third of Northland's population was Maori, with special cultural requirements.

He said the 140,000 Northlanders also had an above-average demand for medical services, with higher rates of diseases like hepatitis, hypertension and diabetes.

Mr Pigou, who is project manager (laboratory services) for the funding authority, said any tender model for pathology services would address the "major issue" of accessibility.

"There has to be direct access."

The authority was not keen on Auckland's scoring the Northland work as the providers already ran a monopoly.

He said the purchasing model was still at a consultation stage, and if, as a result, a tendering process still seemed favourable, more consultation would follow.

The consultation included removing anomalies between regions in terms of tests available, and introducing more competition.