Staff shortages force Medlab closures

The doors of Tāhunanui’s Medlab South closed temporarily last week due to a shortage of staff.

Southern Community Laboratories chief executive Peter Gootjes says general sickness, household contacts isolating, and a shortness of phlebotomists means they have had to close their doors.

The lab at Nelson Hospital is also closed to community patients wanting blood tests.

Peter says staff from those facilities have been redistributed to other Medlabs in town, and he was hoping Tāhunanui’s facility would be open again this week.

With the possibility that more staff may have time off work, Peter says their staff have contingency plans in place.

“If we suddenly lose too many staff, and we cannot operate places for people to have blood tests, we have talked with the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board to discuss other solutions.”

Nelson Marlborough Health (NMH) Strategy, Primary and Community general manager Cathy O’Malley says that as part of the Covid-19 contingency planning, NMH spoke to General Practices in the region to understand their capacity to offer assistance should it be required.

“It’s a great example of the greater health team working together to support one another to continue to deliver quality healthcare to our community,” Cathy says.

“Some general practices already do this, some don’t, some said they could, some said they were too busy,” Peter says. “We now have a list we can work with if needed.”

He says they are not wanting to stretch GPs more than they already are.

“We are all working collectively for the good of the patient.”

Meanwhile, staff who have been processing PCR tests have had some relief as RAT tests use increases. Peter says when there are huge surges of demand it is hard to provide the service they want to.

“Everyone got busier and busier and now they have a chance to catch up and move toward normal,” Peter says.