Technician in fight to regain Labtests job

Photo / Dean Purcell

A former Labtests technician is fighting to get her job back after allegedly failing to perform maintenance on a laboratory analyser machine.

But the company, which does most of Auckland's community laboratory testing on contract to the region's three district health boards, says reinstating her would put patients at risk.

The Sri Lankan medical laboratory technician, who is seeking New Zealand residency, has taken her grievance to the Employment Relations Authority.

An interim decision by authority member Mike Loftus holds that Denepitiyage Rathnayaka has an arguable case for reinstatement.

He lists four alleged failures by Ms Rathnayaka.

Three cases involved failing to follow standard operating procedures, in one of which she is said to have switched the outcomes of tests of two samples because she did not follow labelling protocols.

The fourth matter was her alleged failure to perform a daily maintenance task - the cleaning of a dilution bowl and nozzle on one of the four Advia 2400 machines in her work area.

She allegedly certified in the daily maintenance log that the task had been done.

"The failure led to a 'salt bridge build-up' which affected the accuracy of subsequently performed tests," Mr Loftus said.

"This ultimately affected some 200 results and the tests had to be repeated."

Clients had been advised of the original results and the errors had to be reported.

In a letter to Ms Rathnayaka after this incident, Labtests told her it no longer had confidence in her ability to safely operate as a lab technician and had decided to issue a written warning.

Ms Rathnayaka was "removed" from that job last November, three months after she started at the central processing lab in Mt Wellington, and took up an alternative, lower-paid position as a workroom assistant at Labtests' collection centre in Massey.

This position was disestablished in April, and Ms Rathnayaka lost her employment with the company.

Mr Loftus said Labtests contended it had lost confidence in Ms Rathnayaka's ability to continuously perform technician duties competently.

He said there was disagreement on whether the machine which gave the inaccurate results was the one for which she completed the maintenance log.

There was also a possibility that she had been penalised twice - and inconsistently - for one infraction.

Mr Loftus declined to order interim reinstatement, partly because the case is scheduled for a full hearing next Wednesday and Thursday.