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Should Labtests lose its DHB contract?

12:00 AEST Thu Nov 12 2009
Should Labtests lose its DHB contract?
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By MSN NZ staff

Labtest's woes continue with reports this morning that it failed to diagnose cancer in tissue taken from a patient with a history of malignant melanoma.

The alleged error is just the latest criticism of the company which has been under attack since it began taking over Auckland District Health Board's laboratory testing contract in August.

Read more: Labtests misses patient's cancer

Teething problems with the new service caused patients and doctors in the region to complain about waiting times at collection centres, delays getting test results and even receiving the wrong test results in the mail.

Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson said in September that he had received complaints against Labtests and he was concerned about the potential risk to public safety.

To take the pressure off Labtests, the DHB announced in October that the company which previously held the contract, Diagnostic Medlab, would take over 10 per cent of the community contract, at a cost of $10.6 million.

Should the Auckland District Health Board dump Labtests? Or has the company not been given a fair go? Have your say below.

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User comments
The faults commence with the terms & conditions of the tender contract. As such the officials in ADHB should be held accountable. Similarly the officials of Labtests who cost the contract be held accountable. As the main purpose of the tender was to reduce cost, wouldn't be more cost effective to utilise the principle of competition, and one form of this is have two or more suppliers & apply a ceiling level of charges chargable by all parties.
Abso-blinkin'-lutely! They're a scourge on the NZ health system- and while we're at it, shoot those idiots that let LabTest in, in the first instance. Start with Tony-Baloney Rile. Snotty-nosed git!!! Patients have already died thanx to them. And we're gonna lose some more, you mark my words!
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree with your comments. What has politics or change over processes got to do with labtests providing an incorrect result to a patient? Regardless of how the media portrays an incident, the fact is, an incident occured. The media wasnt rsponsible for the testing of the patients blood or tissue, nor were the media responsible for sending out letters advising of incorrect results. So why blame the media?
I'm a med lab scientist. The media should be ashamed for misrepresenting the "issues" as every lab has similar problems. The issues relate to the industry not to the company providing the service. Labtests started from scratch with no co-ordination of the hand over. The way in which pathology contracts are tendered to private companies is a situation almost unique to NZ. There needs to be more support in the changeover of services. There should be infrastructure in place to do this such as a central data base of doctor contact details, unique provider numbers for each practice the doctor works in & standardisation of the terminology which is used to request tests. Poor communication is the issue & not from Labtests. Their process is transparent & they have co-operated completely . People will critiscise but not be proactive about the solutions or look at the root causes. This battle was won once at tender & secondly in a 2 year court battle. It's time to leave this be it's old news.
My daughter was home from England for 2 weeks While here she had a check up and blood tests.Being very needle phobic she went with fear and trepidation to the Meadowbank Labtests rooms the closest to her GP. She was very impressed with the standard of the rooms, the excellent customer service and the skill of the Phlebotomist who put her at ease and as she said she didn't feel a thing. Her results were available the next day. In England you can wait a fortnight or more for your results. Way to go Labtests
I was in at the Labtest room for a blood test recently. There was also an Elderly gentleman was waiting to do his test too ,before me. When the Elderly man (who seemed to be very ill) was called for he stumbled and fell down, as he tried to walk. The Staff in the center quickly came to his rescue, helped him up, made sure he was unhurt, offered him a drink, then did his test after he was a bit better. After his test when they found out that he was driving, they offered to drive him home too and did the same.. now if you don't call this Quality Service..then I would say we can't get anything better than this!! I personally feel Labtests company and its staff are being treated very unfairly by Aucklanders. Just because we have got used to the previous provider DML so much there's no justice in blaming Labtests for every little hiccup someone faces. Why don't those complaining realise that those working at Labtests are people too? Please give them a break & let them do what they do BEST
I have to say labtest are doing a wonderful job given they have been bombarded with negative critisism and media, I went the other day and they have served me with an excellent service. We need to give them a fair go the only reason diagnostic didnot have trouble is because they were the only provider and people cant complain because of that. All the best to labtest.
Its time Labtests is getting some honest support of all of us! Its about time the Doctors and the Public of Auckland are going to Support Labtests, as nobody is benefitting from all the negativity which is spread by some Doctors and DML, as you all know nobody is perfect and yes Mistakes have been made, but I know Labtest is working very hard to get it right, Labtests sincerely cares for the Patients, Doctors and their staff, and you know? its very easy to break down a hard working Company, but it takes lot to get them back up again, so I would kindly call upon all of you to give your support to Labtests and my advise to DM, please do the honorable thing, you lost the contract several times so please move on, be fair and stop you're Labtests bashing campaign as you know very well that everything Labtests has been accused of has been blown out of proportions big time.
i think labtest should stay and the dhb did the right thing cause there was a lot of money wasted by diagnostic med lab, also labtest are doing exllent job and of course every new company will face some difficulties in the beginning ,they are trying their best to prevent and solve problems.I just want to remind people who used to wait hourrs at dml in the week end collecion rooms and happy to do so ,now they complain about waiting 10 min at labtest ????? I Think we are very lucky to have such a great service from labtest and we dont have to wait long or pay for our tests.
I have to say, some of the comments I read so far are absolutely appalling and ridiculous. I think expecting Labtest to perform 100% on their first day with the amount of negative publicity which I really believe are mostly directed from DML and their supporters in NZ Herald is unrealistic. I had to go to lab tests the other day and I have to say, I couldn’t find anything that I can possibly complain about! I have been working in customer service all my life, and I can assure you that you will never, ever get 100% satisfaction rate but I ask anyone before they write some non-sense to take a deep breathe and ask themselves whether they have ever made any error on their first few months on a job???!! Please give them a chance!

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