Overtaken by the Omicron wave, screening clinics and hospitals in Quebec are transferring the analysis of PCR tests to private laboratories. Contracts totaling over $ 40 million have been signed with the government in recent months.
To cope with the increase in the number of screening tests and the lack of personnel, the CIUSSS de l’Estrie signed on December 17 a mutual agreement contract of 3.7 million with the EnvironeX-Eurofins laboratory “for a maximum of 1000 analyzes per day ”. An agreement that “meets a short-term need “, explains the CIUSSS, which could again call on an external supplier for the analysis of COVID-19 screening tests.
The CIUSSS de l’Estrie is not the first to have turned to the private sector to keep its head above water.
Last June, a call for tenders to carry out PCR tests on behalf of the Montreal CIUSSS and the Outaouais and Laval CISSSs was also awarded to EnvironeX-Eurofins for a total of $ 21,615,861, with three options. renewal of six months each. The bill could reach $ 86,463,446 in the coming months.
“The objective of this partnership with a private laboratory is to reduce the significant pressure currently exerted on the laboratories of the health and social services network. […] This is a temporary measure that will be reassessed depending on the evolution of the pandemic, ”added Robert Maranda, media relations manager at the Ministry of Health and Social Services ( MSSS).
The MSSS returned The duty to the law of access to information, about the cost of a PCR test carried out in private laboratories. The latter is considered “confidential for reasons of competition and purchasing management”.
Unclog laboratories
In 2021, the CHUM also did business with private laboratories and thus awarded $ 1.5 million in COVID screening contracts. Optilab Montréal-CHUM, which manages all of the metropolitan area’s laboratories assigned to it, had to call on the services of EnvironeX this week.
“Different strategies are in place to rebalance the unprecedented volume of samples to be processed […] If we first promote mutual aid between laboratories, when the volume becomes too large to meet the usual deadlines for obtaining results and all possible solutions have been exhausted, sending it to the private sector is considered. », Explained to Duty Andrée-Anne Toussaint, CHUM communications advisor.
The Sacré-Coeur hospital and the Verdun hospital each sent a thousand samples this week to the private sector to occasionally relieve their respective volume. A decision taken jointly by Optilab Montréal-CHUM and the MSSS.
How to explain this current overflow in Montreal, when new criteria frame population screening?
“For the Verdun hospital, there is no population analysis, but the volume of tests to be performed has increased recently. For other population-based screening centers, the measures [d’encadrement] entered into force on Wednesday [le 5 janvier], and some screening centers took turns for 24 hours. The repercussions of the large volume of the last week cannot be dissipated immediately ”, explains Mme Toussaint.
“Even at the weakest point of the pandemic, we had difficulty in terms of screening capacities,” recalls Robert Maranda. When the time came to grant these contracts, we were really overwhelmed. We needed those laboratories. “
He notes that on his own, screening unvaccinated healthcare workers is a daunting challenge. “They represent 4% of the 325,000 healthcare workers, and they need to be screened three times a week. That’s a lot of people, despite the new restrictions! »Says the head of media relations at the Ministry of Health. He also mentions a shortage of PCR collection tubes in the public network for one of the machine models used in Montreal laboratories.
Staff shortage
“Sending the tests to the private sector is a plaster. It is not a lasting solution. The government will have to prove that it now wants a quality public network, that it is not moving towards decentralization to the private sector, ”says Nathalie Chalifoux, national representative of the Staff Alliance from the outset. professional and technical health and social services (APTS) for the CHUM and associated medical laboratories.
The APTS believes that the shortage of personnel in the laboratories is not new, but that the government is slow to recognize it.
“At the Sacré-Coeur-de-Montreal hospital, we have an employee who has worked overtime 10 nights in a row. In the CHUM cluster, according to the figures of the administrators, as of December 17, there was a shortage of 135 technologists. It’s enormous ! That’s 10% of laboratory staff, ”explains Mme Chalifoux. “With additional staff, we could do evening and night shifts and thus have a greater capacity for tests,” she notes.
According to a recent portrait of the workforce working in the medical biology laboratories of the MSSS, drawn up in June 2021, a scenario predicts that a total of 1,660 hires will be needed over the next five years in order to fill the departures. of the profession.
Mme Chalifoux also deplores the lack of valuation of the profession by the government during the pandemic. “Laboratory workers do not have a COVID bonus or a stair bonus. In two years, the government has not given them any incentive to stay in the network, ”she says.
In interview with The duty, the Ministry of Health acknowledges having placed a great deal of emphasis on nurses and orderlies. “But we’re here now. The prioritization of PCR tests will give a little air to the technicians who do the tests. There was hope to delegate these resources in the network. But that may not be possible either, ”says Robert Maranda.