Poor pay, an ageing workforce and stress from the pandemic are all factors in growing numbers of lab scientists looking to retirement without a stream of replacements, the sector says
New Zealand’s medical laboratory workforce is starting to shrink, with fears of a flood of departures as burnout from the Covid-19 response hits an ageing workforce.
Industry figures say pay rates for workers must improve, while they are also urging the Government to play a greater role in training new specialists and supporting the sector.
The country’s labs were thrust into the spotlight earlier this year when the Omicron outbreak caused a surge in demand for PCR testing.
After testing capacity fell well short of official government estimates, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield admitted the Ministry of Health had overestimated the number of PCR tests that could be processed as the virus took off in the community.
Now, figures from the Medical Sciences Council provided to Newsroom show the number of practising medical laboratory scientists in New Zealand has gone backwards in the last year, falling from 1823 people in 2021 to just 1809 in 2022.
Terry Taylor, the president of the New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science, told Newsroom the downturn was concerning but little surprise, with the institute warning incoming health minister David Clark in 2017 “that we were going to be in trouble in the next few years”.
The lab workforce was already 10 percent below optimal numbers before the pandemic even began, while Covid testing requirements had added extra pressure to an already significant workload.
“We were expected to do another 25 to 40 percent increase in our workflows during the January and February period with Omicron, with the same staff. How do you think those staff felt at the end of all of that?”
Dr Deborah Powell, the national secretary for the Apex union of allied scientific and technical health professionals, told Newsroom the ageing workforce had long been an issue. The average medical laboratory science worker was 55 years old, while there were not sufficiently attractive pay and employment conditions to attract young scientists.
“What we’re seeing is a large number of people retiring: I attended a retirement party last night for 14 [people] in one laboratory.”
The strains of the Covid response had acted as the final straw for some contemplating retirement, but Powell said the pre-Covid workload in hospitals was also relentless.
“A lot of our scientists are really on the edge at the moment - I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually going to end up being a tsunami of people walking away from the profession.”
“It has been like a slow tsunami approaching from for a while - then add Covid and it’s just crashed on our shores and it's going to continue to do so.”
Lab workers had been “a bit of a hidden workforce” before the pandemic, with district health boards prioritising other areas rather than addressing the underlying problems with recruitment and retention.
Taylor said the Government’s focus on automation through greater use of technology did not stack up, given such machinery could break down and still needed expert oversight from scientists.
“A lot of our scientists are really on the edge at the moment - I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually going to end up being a tsunami of people walking away from the profession.”
While roughly $300 million a year had been put towards Covid PCR testing, it was not clear how much of that had gone into training new staff or expanding research and diagnostic fields.
“We need to be asking both the minister and also the Ministry of Health, you're prepared to throw millions of dollars at it, but where's it gone? It's a bit like the mental health money, the $1.2 billion that was spent for mental health that no one knows where it's gone.”
Taylor said more money needed to go towards training up New Zealanders, while there also needed to be greater retention of institutional knowledge within the sector.
'Cohesive' plan needed
Both Taylor and Powell were hopeful the Government’s health reforms could lead to a shake-up of the laboratory testing sector, with Powell saying the union had been pushing for Health NZ to create a single national service covering both private and public labs.
“I'm not particularly concerned about who owns a laboratory, I am concerned that we are cohesive, that we have a plan, that we commit and invest in that plan for the whole of the laboratory service in New Zealand.”
A Ministry of Health spokesman told Newsroom the ministry was aware of the “considerable strain” facing laboratory workers and the wider health workforce as a result of the pandemic response.
“While this has been exacerbated by Covid-19, workforce pressures existed prior to the pandemic. This is largely resulting from an ageing population, increasing complexity in population health profiles and an ageing health workforce.”
The Government’s health reforms, taking effect from July, focused on structural changes to the health system and would provide an opportunity to strengthen the supply and distribution of the workforce.
The ministry was working with the wider health system to examine ways to strengthen the country’s laboratory system, and a shared governance group had started work on “a public health laboratory science strategy and operating model in the context of a wider surveillance strategy”.
Newsroom contacted the offices of Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins, Health Minister Andrew Little and Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall to ask whether the Government was concerned about the workforce issues and what it planned to do in response. None had responded at the time of publication.
