BC LifeLabs Closures Highlight PPE Concerns and Growing Shortage of Lab Workers | The Canadian News

The union representing LifeLabs workers in British Columbia says the temporary location of nearly a dozen labs calls for better protections for frontline workers, amid the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

BC General Clerks Union President Stephanie Smith said LifeLabs was not facing a staffing “crisis” and that it could have been at least partially mitigated with better protective equipment for workers.

“When we saw Omicron coming, we were saying where the N95 masks are for members, bringing back capacity limits,” he said.

“We need to keep workers from getting sick rather than trying to deal with an emergency situation with a short staff, and life labs are a perfect example of that, having to adjust hours and shut down.”

LifeLabs announced Wednesday that it would close 11 patient care centers, primarily in southwestern British Columbia, and reduce hours at another five due to “the spread of Omicon and related protocols that have resulted in serious impacts to employees.” .

the company website lists numerous COVID-19 safety protocols, including health screening, masking, and distancing requirements for customers, a mandatory vaccination policy for staff, and PPE requirements for staff including masks while speaking with customers, and additional PPE “such as eye protection, gloves and isolation gowns according to the risks present.”

Smith said the work at LifeLabs, which includes COVID-related testing as well as other critical daily medical tests for thousands of British Columbians, is so important that more needs to be done.

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“If you are in public and you are working, you should be given an N95 or KN95 mask,” he said. “We want essential workers to be prioritized for testing and access to vaccine boosters.”

LifeLabs is far from alone in facing a staffing shortage as Omicron drives case numbers to record levels, and BC health officials have already mulled allowing some health care workers to return to work. early after testing positive for COVID-19.

Christine Nielsen, executive director of the Canadian Center for Medical Laboratory Sciences, said healthcare facilities across the province are dealing with critical staffing levels.

“What we are seeing is a notion that the health system could be torn down from the inside out, meaning no staff. And you are seeing it,” he told Global News.

Nielsen said labs across the country have known for years that they are facing a staffing crisis as a “gray-haired” workforce begins to retire.

British Columbia has been warned about the problem several times, including in its own 2018 human resources plan, which found that 26 percent of the current workforce of medical laboratory assistants and 42 percent of the current workforce of medical laboratory technologists could retire within five years.

The COVID-19 crisis, which has added a massive workload coupled with high levels of stress and burnout in lab workers, has only exacerbated that problem, Neilsen said.

“We need 400 more people a year to graduate across Canada to graduate in the next decade. There are 4,000 more people so that we can meet current demands,” he said.

“That’s before COVID came along.”

In British Columbia, Nielsen said there are only two programs for graduate technologists and three for graduate assistants.

While BCIT’s technologist program looks to expand, Nielsen said there is a lack of clinical placements, essentially internships, for more students.

“We have been calling for investments in BC for domestic supply as well as suitable qualification routes for overseas trained for, I would say, at least a decade,” he said.

Meanwhile, LifeLabs said it was redeploying staff from closed labs to nearby central locations, and patients would be redirected to a facility that could care for them.

The company says it continues to monitor the staffing situation and will provide an update in the next two to three weeks.

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