Laboratory services for outpatients at the Kirkland Lake hospital site are changing due to a critical shortage of Medical Laboratory Technologists. Over the past several months, Blanche River Health has seen a number of staff transitions that have produced increased pressures on the laboratory team to cover the full spectrum of laboratory services on a 24/7 basis. These pressures have reached a point where choices in service provision have become necessary on a temporary basis to ensure sufficient capacity to support the emergency department, surgical, oncology and dialysis program areas.

As a result of the staffing pressures, Blanche River Health has made the difficult decision to reduce its outpatient blood collection capacity in order to redeploy staff to focus on providing services to priority areas of the core hospital operations. To minimize disruption to affected outpatients, Blanche River Health has been working closely with the Kirkland District Family Health Team (KDFHT) to transition the patients to their outpatient collection laboratory located at the Health Centre building in downtown Kirkland Lake.

“We realize this change in blood collection services at the hospital will create some disruption to patients as they transition to the service provided at the KDFHT. Our current circumstance has left us with few options, and I am grateful for the partnership and support of the KDFHT who has made changes within their own organization to accommodate the increased outpatient volumes,” commented Blanche River Health President and Chief Executive Officer Sean Conroy.

“The Kirkland District Family Health Team is committed to assisting our healthcare partners by continuing to offer access to outpatient lab services to members of the community,” stated Kirkland District Family Health Team Executive Director Mandy Weeden. “During the height of the pandemic, the KDFHT was offering outpatient lab services on a scheduled appointment-only basis and has recently resumed walk-in service in order to increase the number of patients being served. We experienced a high volume of no-shows for scheduled appointments in our lab and by resuming a walk-in service, we are able to serve more patients daily. We ask for your patience and support during this time as our staff work tirelessly to serve you while transitioning to the additional volume of patients coming from the hospital.”

Patients can access the blood collection lab services at the KDFHT on a walk-in basis between the hours of 8:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Monday to Friday (except statutory holidays.) Please note, higher patient volumes and wait times may be experienced during early morning hours.

 “Our hospital continues to focus on the recruitment of additional staff to improve capacity in our laboratory services. Significant work has been underway in the past couple weeks to introduce new processes and testing equipment that will soon help alleviate some of the current pressures. We are also fortunate to have some great support from our regional laboratory cluster group who has been instrumental in advancing many of these required internal changes,” said Conroy.

For more information about Blanche River Health, please visit: www.blancheriverhealth.ca.