Underfunding of clinical laboratories has led to similar worker walkouts in multiple Australasian nations
Once again, cuts in government spending on pathology services has forced healthcare workers to walk off the job in Australia. This is in line with other pathology doctor and clinical laboratory workers strikes in New Zealand and other Australasian nations over the past few years.
Announcement of a planned closure of the pathology laboratory at 30-bed Cootamundra Hospital in Australia to make room for expanding the emergency department spurred the health worker walkouts.
“Health staff from Cootamundra Hospital, alongside pathology workers from Deniliquin, Tumut, Griffith, Wagga Wagga, and Young will rally in front of their respective facilities” to draw attention to the effect closing the lab would have on critical healthcare services across those areas, Region Riverina reported.
The strikes are drawing attention to unfair pay and poor working conditions that underfunding has brought to the state-run healthcare systems in those nations. They also highlight how clinical laboratories worldwide are similarly struggling with facility closings, unfair pay, and unachievable workloads.
“The proposed closure of Cootamundra’s pathology lab is a short-sighted decision that will have far-reaching consequences for patient care in the region,” NSW Health Services Union (HSU) Secretary Gerard Hayes (above) told Region Riverina. Similar arguments have been made for years concerning the underfunding, pay disparities, and poor working conditions in New Zealand’s government-run clinical laboratories and pathology practices that has led to worker strikes there as well. (Photo copyright: HSU.)
Australia Pathology Lab Closure Stokes Fears
Cootamundra Hospital’s strike was spurred by a planned closure of its pathology laboratory. In May, employees learned of the plans to close the lab as well as surgery and birthing centers to accommodate expansion of the emergency department, Region Riverina reported.
“Pathology workers are already in short supply and this move could see us lose highly skilled professionals from the NSW Health system altogether,” New South Wales (NSW) Health Services Union (HSU) Secretary Gerard Hayes told Region Riverina.
The cuts would not only be detrimental to the area, it would significantly affect patient care, he added.
“This lab is not just profitable; it’s a vital lifeline for Cootamundra Hospital’s [surgical] theater lists and maternity unit,” he said. “Without this lab, patients will face significantly longer wait times for life-saving diagnostic information. This delay could severely impact our ability to provide timely care, especially in emergencies.”
Echoing those sentiments, HSU Union Official Sam Oram told Region Riverina that closing the Cootamundra Hospital lab would put pressure on labs in Wagga and Young and would continue a trend of closing smaller pathology labs. Oram, who organizes for members in Canberra and Murrumbidgee Local Health District, noted that smaller labs in Tumut and Deniliquin could be in danger as well.
“Why should people living in rural and regional areas have fewer and inferior services to Australians living in metropolitan areas?” Michael McCormack, MP, Federal Member for Riverina and former deputy prime minister of Australia, asked Parliament in June, Region Riverina reported. “There’s no right or proper answer to that question. They simply should not,” he added.
Tasmania’s Troubles
Medical scientists recently walked off the job at Launceston General Hospital in Tasmania, Australia, to protest “the government’s ‘inaction’ on recruiting more staff,” according to Pulse Tasmania. The hospital’s lab has a staff shortage of 17 employees, requiring the remaining staff members to handle a much increased workload, Ryan Taylor, a medical laboratory scientist with the Tasmanian Department of Health, told Pulse Tasmania.
“This shortfall is leading to significant and unacceptable challenges … which are causing the Tasmanian community from receiving vital test results that are essential for their health,” Lucas Digney, Industrial Champion, Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) leader, told Pulse Tasmania.
New Zealand Struggles with Its Healthcare Workers
Aotearoa, as New Zealand is known by its indigenous Polynesian population, also struggles with health worker walkouts.
“Medical labs are an essential organ of the health system. Many were stupidly privatized years ago, others still operate within Te Whatu Ora [aka Health New Zealand, the publicly funded healthcare system] with all the resource shortages and stress that go with that,” Newsroom said of the country’s plight in 2023. “There was a view that competition in medical labs would produce greater efficiency, but it has actually produced a mess.”
Dark Daily has covered the ongoing strife in New Zealand’s clinical laboratories over many years. Previous ebriefs highlighted how the strikes were causing delays in critical clinical laboratory blood testing and surgical procedures.
In “New Zealand Blood Service Workers and Junior Doctors Hit the Picket Line Once Again to Fight against Pay Disparities and Poor Working Conditions,” we covered how after seven months of failed negotiations, New Zealand’s blood workers, clinical laboratory technicians, and medical scientists, again went on strike in May with another walkout planned for June.
In “Medical Laboratory Workers Again on Strike at Large Clinical Laboratory Company Locations around New Zealand,” we reported on a medical laboratory worker strike in New Zealand’s South Island and Wellington regions where workers walked off the job after a negotiated agreement was not reached between specialist union APEX and Awanui Labs, one of the country’s largest hospital and clinical laboratory services providers.
And in “Four Thousand New Zealand Medical Laboratory Scientists and Technicians Threatened to Strike over Low Pay and Poor Working Conditions,” we covered walkouts in 2022 sparked by an unprecedented surge in PCR COVID-19 testing that pushed the country’s 10,000 healthcare workers—including 4,000 medical laboratory scientists and technicians—to the breaking point.
Underfunding in clinical laboratories continues to cause work stoppages in the Australasian countries. But as Dark Daily readers know, it is a growing problem among European nations and in the United States as well.
—Kristin Althea O’Connor
Related Information:
NZ’s Health Lab Staff Deserve Better than Failed Private Leadership
Stop-Work Action Planned by Health Workers to Protest Pathology Lab Cuts
Launceston General Hospital Medical Science Staff Walk Out over ‘Critical Understaffing Issues’
Pathologists Fear Sector Collapse without Urgent Change