Opinion piece – Terry Taylor, President of the New
Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science
I
remember last year well when July 1st rolled along, the
proud feeling that after nearly four years of numerous
meeting submissions, discussions, and assurances the
formation of a new truly one health system entity Te Whatu
Ora came into being.
I am writing this during a break
from providing the specialised test analysis for some of the
most desperate patient situations that our scientists deal
with. It is stressful but rewarding and something medical
laboratory professionals across the pathology sector do
every day because the specialist scientific expertise they
have makes a real difference to the patient’s whom those
samples come from. This realtime experience is what I take
to all political and health leadership discussions including
with Te Whatu Ora.
For the medical laboratory science
profession this time last year we had just come through the
absolute bedlam and despair of living as a profession caught
firmly in the public and political headlights from the
pandemic testing response. We had seen reports and
recommendations on how best to move forward for our sector
and had the political level reassurances that our well
reported and identified workforce and system issues were to
be worked through.
Roll on one year later and it is
fair to say there is now despair and frustration resonating
through the pathology sector that is no different from our
other frontline colleagues. We have well documented
workforce retention and disparate funding issues for
training and pathology service provision. We still have no
operational independent pathology expertise in any national
leadership position. There is no national pathology strategy
in place yet. Like every other sector we have sat discussing
these issues and the direction we need to go in numerous
‘working groups’ that, as of yet, haven’t resulted in
any actual tangible operational frontline or training
differences.
However, I do have hope – and that is
because of the health leadership I have been fortunate to
sit in rooms with or have correspondence with. Some have
gone and new leaders have appeared but for someone like me
the message that is clear is the determination and drive to
get us all to a better place resonating from each and every
leader. Yes, there is a huge amount of work to do in the
middle management to change the old DHB mentality and
‘buddy’ approaches to service provision, but as long as
the expertise from within the health professional and
operational groups are leading the impetus good things can
and will happen.
I will remain optimistic but as I do
remind those same leaders the clock is ticking and time is
most definitely not our friend here. The real operational
mahi starts
now……..
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