Opinion -Terry Taylor, New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science (NZIMLS) president

Worldwide, the COVID Pandemic has highlighted the status and expertise of diagnostic laboratories and the scientists and technicians that work within them. There has been a real time assessment of national structures and approaches that have been successful and those systems that have proved inadequate and dysfunctional. For the first time in living memory politicians worldwide were determining the expectations for diagnostic testing services, which for the most part, had never previously knew or cared anything about. Both New Zealand, and Australia experienced the same issues around expectation and diagnostic testing problems that were never newsworthy in the past. To have diagnostic testing methods, capability and professional issues played out in mainstream media and parliament buildings is something that no diagnostic laboratory stakeholder was prepared for.

It was not unexpected that the concerns voiced for years by various professional groups were key issues raised in the 2020 Health and Disability Review. The question remains as to what will the future look like under Health NZ governance and will this mitigate future pandemic response planning and outcomes.

‘I am very optimistic that the pandemic has highlighted that having a highly motivated and functional workforce is the way forward. To have scientists and technicians who feel an integral part of the health system and are respected and recognised for their contributions will assist getting buy in at the frontline of service provision’, says Terry Taylor New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science (NZIMLS) president.

“Having to follow the NZ Health Charter that will set the ‘rules of engagement’, will go a long way to correcting the years of professional neglect that the health workforce has put up with”, says Taylor.

As the pandemic moves into the third year there needs to be some hard questions asked and decisions made with regards to future diagnostic testing responses. To have not had a coordinated plan in place before the pandemic, highlighted a major failing and we have chased our tail ever since. It is pleasing to see that the appropriate experts are now being seconded and thoughts to a future pandemic plan now being followed through.

‘I can unequivocally say that we will never put our entire diagnostic laboratory services under such constant pressure as to overrun our testing potential again. This was wrong on so many counts and to sacrifice a tired and vulnerable workforce that resulted in flow on affects for all other parts of the health system was not ever

acceptable’, says Taylor

‘We all await the findings and recommendations from the independent review into the COVID PCR capability overestimation to take into the planning for future pandemic testing approaches’, says Taylor.

Any future testing plan for new COVID variants or other emerging infectious diseases needs to reflect the limitations that all our frontline services have. The incorporation of as many tools that can assist, needs to be researched and validated by a specialised team of expert medical professionals including medical scientists. The regional to national coordination requires strong expert leadership and the logistics requirements to be refined to reflect where the need will be. Constant fine tuning and evaluation of worldwide data is vital to ensure our preparation reflects evidence-based practise. New Zealand is unique in that we generally see a time delay in emerging variants and infections. We should always use this time wisely in the future by anticipating specific demands. Rather than the reactionary approaches of the past, development of a strong plan with a dynamic component is urgently required for any future pandemic response.

‘The NZIMLS will be ensuring that there is strong medical laboratory scientist input into future pandemic plans. Appropriate knowledge of the complex interactions that diagnostic laboratories have within the wider health sector is essential. To have not had that independent expert medical scientist leadership from the start of the COVID pandemic has been a glaring mistake so this is the chance to right that wrong’, says Taylor.

It has been an incredibly difficult past two years for all those who have been involved with diagnostic testing during the pandemic. Every stakeholder involved has faced many difficult moments and challenges but together have pulled through. There is genuine resolve and determination to ensure that the learnings from the past two years are taken into the future planning for other major public health and medical responses.

‘My personal plea is for political and health leaders to never again go into a future public health emergency without having expert professional medical scientist direction in place from the beginning. The formation of the national Public Health Authority to operate alongside Health NZ is the golden opportunity to consolidate expert scientist involvement to coordinate pandemic testing planning’, says Taylor.

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