Australian government rules lab employee’s rogue actions jeopardized patient care
In an example of “if something can go wrong in the lab, it will,” a senior histology laboratory worker at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia, has been banned for life from providing health services for allegedly swapping patient tissue samples in an attempt to harm a lab co-worker, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
Dianne Reader, 61, was a “a senior technical officer at the Anatomical Pathology Laboratory with more than 40 years’ experience,” the Herald noted, adding that Reader “had swapped 20 patient tissue samples, leading to the misdiagnosis of at least one patient.”
Her motivation, the Herald reported, was to “target and discredit her colleague.”
“Ms. Reader repeatedly engaged in conduct that demonstrated a flagrant disregard for patient health and safety” that may have “serious adverse consequences for the patients involved,” Tony Kofkin at Australia’s Health Care Complaints Commission told The Sydney Morning Herald. This is a lesson that clinical laboratory managers can never be too diligent because something unexpected can happen at any moment—and these events have the potential to cause serious patient harm. (Photo copyright: LinkedIn.)
Lab Staff Suspicions Raised
The sample mixups began in 2020, when the targeted employee (employee A) was working specimen “cut-up” duty. After two incidents of sample mixups being found in her work, she was removed from the duty for three weeks. The Herald reported that the employee told a co-worker she believed she was being “framed.” When she returned to cut-up duty, she took photographs of her work as a precautionary measure.
The employee’s photos served as evidence when that day’s work again showed errors, now the third incident of sample mixups. Upon further research, a total of four occasions of swapping samples were discovered between March and June of 2020.
Laboratory records showed that Reader was responsible for unpacking the tissue processor on each of those occasions, the Herald noted.
Lab workers noted a strained working relationship between Reader and the targeted employee. “One co-worker, a hospital scientist, told the [Health Care Complaints Commission] the working relationship between Reader and ‘Employee A’ could be ‘frosty,’” the Herald reported.
Lab staff apparently grew suspicious when a co-worker discovered that Reader “was only looking up gall bladder and appendices samples on the mornings Employee A had been ‘cutting up’ (dissecting and describing samples before placing them into cassettes for processing).” Lab staff also confirmed to the Health Care Complaints Commission that Reader had improperly accessed 43 patient records, adding that “there was no reason for her to have accessed the records when she did,” The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Reader, according to the Herald, “denied she had ever interchanged specimens or improperly accessed patient files in two recorded interviews in July 2020, and maintains her innocence.”
Nevertheless, Tony Kofkin, the Commission’s complaint operations Executive Director, found that Reader “posed a risk to the health and safety of the public because she was prepared to risk patient safety in order to discredit her colleague.
“Ms. Reader repeatedly engaged in conduct that demonstrated a flagrant disregard for patient health and safety,” he wrote in the Commission’s findings, adding that Reader “had shown no remorse or insight into her conduct ‘despite the overwhelming evidence’ and as such posed a permanent risk to the health and safety of the public,” the Herald reported.
The Health Care Complaints Commission determined that Reader’s actions were “motivated by a desire to target and discredit her colleague.” The Commission’s decision prevents Reader from forever providing healthcare services, including medical, hospital, pharmaceutical, forensic pathology, or health education services, according to the Herald.
Who Was Harmed by the Swapped Samples?
Reader’s alleged actions had significant consequences. One patient’s swapped sample nearly led her to having a hysteroscopy for a glandular polyp, when in fact she was suffering with endometrial hyperplasia. Thankfully, the histology laboratory staff discovered the mistake and quickly contacted the patient’s doctor to ensure the proper surgery was performed, the Herald noted.
Things could have gone much worse for that patient and for others. Clinical laboratory managers should look upon this as a cautionary tale and consider how to ensure similar—and very rare—occurrences do not happen in their own laboratories.
—Kristin Althea O’Connor
Related Information:
Sydney Laboratory Worker Swapped Patient Samples to ‘Target and Discredit’ Co-Worker
