As of early 2009, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) will no longer be providing community-based lab services.

On Monday, the organization issued a press release stating that it would be moving its community lab services to the provincial model, which calls for all testing requested by local physicians to be done at the central lab of Gamma-Dynacare in Brampton.

“This decision has been made in order to ensure that sustainable accessible quality community laboratory services continue to be available to the residents of Muskoka and East Parry Sound,” said the press release.

Muskoka’s community-based lab program is currently a tripartite agreement between MAHC, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and Gamma-Dynacare, which assists with collecting and transporting blood and swab samples from local doctors’ offices to the labs at South Muskoka Memorial Hospital (SMMH) in Bracebridge and Huntsville District Memorial Hospital (HDMH), where testing is done on-site.

Specimen collection is also done at the Burk’s Falls and District Health Centre.

That contract is now being terminated, and all outpatient laboratory testing will be sent from the Gamma-Dynacare community labs to the central lab in Brampton.

“It was a joint decision of the four parties; ourselves, Gamma-Dynacare, the Ministry of Health lab services branch and the (North Simcoe Muskoka LHIN) and so it was our joint decision that this was the best model,” said MAHC CEO Barry Lockhart.

The notion of cutting community-based lab services in Muskoka has been around for well over a year, after MAHC first announced it was considering the move in early 2007.

At the time the notion was met with fierce opposition from members of the public, who felt it would be a detriment to local health care.

“The fact that Gamma-Dynacare is going to be doing the community-based work (in Brampton) doesn’t mean there’s a deterioration in the turn-around times or the results (or) the quality of work that they’re going to do, it’s just being done by a different provider,” said Lockhart.

Gamma-Dynacare director of communications Shelly Jourard told this newspaper that the public likely won’t notice any difference.

“We anticipate that patients in the region won’t see any changes as a result of this initiative because it doesn’t change the way the samples are collected,” she said, adding that MAHC will continue to provide lab services for all hospital patients and registered outpatients.

Gamma-Dynacare’s central lab serves thousands of health care providers and their patients from communities all across the province, said Jourard.

Although the amount of time it takes for a sample to be tested and the results reported to a patient’s physician varies depending on the test, Jourard said most routine tests take about one business day.

“Results are usually in the form of a written report. If there are results that the doctor needs to know about right away then those are phoned to the doctor,” she said.

Lockhart said that currently results are provided anywhere from the same day to one or two days later, depending on a number of factors, including the type of test required and the time of day the specimen was collected and delivered to the hospital.

Both Jourard and Lockhart said that urgent tests, known as stat tests, will still be conducted by the labs at MAHC.

When asked about any potential cuts to jobs at the hospital labs, Lockhart said that the organization would be sitting down with the lab technicians’ union, and that he couldn’t speculate on numbers before that happened.

“Our objective is to mitigate the impact on staffing and we already have some vacancies in our system, so obviously those wouldn’t be replaced and then whatever we can do to mitigate the job impacts we’ll do,” he said.

Lockhart added that currently about 45 per cent of the work done in hospital labs is community based, but he was quick to stress that that doesn’t mean it reflects 45 per cent of the staff workload.

“For example, a lot of the chemistry testing would be apart of that and that’s some automated testing, that isn’t labour-intensive where other parts of the organization are more labour-intensive. So of the total volume of tests, about 45 per cent is community-based but that doesn’t mean it represents 45 per cent of the work,” he said.

David Cox, OPSEU communications officer, said the union, which represents the 24 full-time lab technicians and 19 part-time lab technicians at MAHC, is very concerned about lay-offs.

“We think it will be significant, we think it will be half of the group (so) it could be 10 to 20,” he told this newspaper Monday.

“This is really bad for our members but it’s also bad for the community because the lab testing will be out of the community and obviously with weather conditions there will be concerns about whether or not we will have timely access to results (as well as) all kinds of repercussions on the ability of the lab to attract and recruit people and retain them.”

Jourard said she can understand community members’ concerns over the change affecting the quality of community lab services.

“The way we would respond is that we’ve been in the laboratory business for more than 40 years serving Canadians all across the province. This is our business and we’re a highly experienced and respected service provider in Canada so we pride ourselves on high quality, timely laboratory services and that’s what we plan to deliver to the residents of Muskoka,” she said.

Lockhart said they are now in a six-month notice period required to end MAHC’s contract with Gamma-Dynacare, after which the lab company will enter into an agreement with the ministry directly to provide lab testing services for Muskoka.

“We wouldn’t have any involvement in the community-based testing any longer,” he said.