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Dear Editor,
I should be grateful for the advice of your readers, especially those with expertise in clinical microbiology, on a worrying matter affecting many communities in New Zealand. I am the former Whakatane Hospital Lab Manager who set up the Hepatitis Foundation of New Zealand. I now work as an advisor in Vietnam.
At one time, the Whakatane Hospital Laboratory handled all clinical laboratory specimens from the hospital and from GPs in the Eastern Bay of Plenty (EBOP). Our lab would have been highly profitable had we been paid at the same rates as were "private" labs. In the late 1990s a private laboratory was allowed to take over the GP work, with predictable and predicted effect on the hospital lab, which was not permitted to compete for the work. Specimens from most GPs were from then couriered on to Tauranga.
In 2010 the Bay of Plenty District Health Board (BOPDHB) awarded a contract to a Tauranga private laboratory to take over the running of the Whakatane Hospital Laboratory. A year later the Microbiology Department, whose IANZ audits frequently bettered that of the Tauranga labs, was "disestablished".
Since then urgent microbiology specimens have been processed in Whakatane. "Routine" specimens are couriered to Tauranga. A problem was that the best microbiology scientist was amongst the staff laid off (he had argued against the downgrade), and others left; some resigning in protest. Thus the more pressing urgent work was left to a staff which had diminished in numbers and expertise. Another problem is that of deciding what is "urgent".
In 2011, 30 of 31 Whakatane Hospital SMOs signed a memorandum to the BOPDHB, complaining about the laboratory downgrade...