A proposal to slash the Top of the South’s medical lab workforce and instead send patient tissue samples to Christchurch for testing has been dropped.
On Friday, laboratory company Awanui said it had withdrawn its proposal to move its histology processing work for the upper South Island into its Christchurch laboratory after a week-long consultation with staff, clinicians, and stakeholders.
Awanui had told staff in Nelson last week that the move was part of centralising its nationwide services to make them “sustainable”.
The move would have seen the removal of core histology services and nearly all tissue testing, move to Christchurch resulting in nine Nelson staff, including three medical scientists, losing their jobs.
“Having listened to the feedback, and considering recent staff changes at our laboratories, the pragmatic and sensible outcome is not to proceed with the proposal at this stage,” the company said in a statement.
“This decision will ensure there is no potential risk to turnaround times for testing and patient safety and local services are not compromised.”
Nelson MP Rachel Boyack says it’s “really important” that core health services remain and are available in Nelson.
“The proposal from Awanui, who are a private company, was just a proposal and I’m very pleased that the community were able to raise some of the concerns that they had.”
Rachel says the proposed change could have led to delays in diagnosis for people in Nelson.
The tissue samples must travel by road and cannot be air freighted.
“We have seen in the past years the potential for Nelson to become isolated when our roads close,” Rachel says.
She says while Te Whatu Ora were not a decision maker in this instance, she did reach out to them to understand more about the contractual agreement with Awanui.
Awanui has more than 2000 staff doing almost seven million pathology tests a year, covering three-quarters of the population.
Awanui’s Nelson-Marlborough lab staff processed 21,000 samples from 18,000 patients last year. The samples include skin biopsies and theatre samples.
Local iwi had also expressed concern about the proposal.
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Rārua pouwhakahaere Shane Graham said the proposal, and the resultant loss of local jobs, was difficult to understand at a time when a key driver of change in the health system was reducing inequality.
“Improved local delivery of patient-centric health services for Māori was a key driver of the Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora reforms. Contractors should be supporting the intent of these reforms,” he said.
“Instead, this proposal moves the service further away from patients,” he said during consultation.
