SA Pathology on track for $7.3m savings

SA Pathology is on track for savings to stave off possible privatisation, a state parliamentary committee has heard — but it still faces an unknown number of job losses.

Minister for Health and Wellbeing Stephen Wade. Picture: MATT TURNER

SA PATHOLOGY still faces an unknown number of job losses but it may have made enough efficiency savings to halt any privatisation moves for now.

The organisation also has not been given millions of dollars for overhauls, which had been recommended in consultants PwC report.

SA Pathology acting clinical services director Dr Tom Dodd said the service was working to reach the $7.3 million in efficiency savings demanded in the State Budget for the coming financial year.

“We are confident we are able to deliver the savings we need to undertake in the next 12 months through arrangements in place in our organisation,” he said. “We are not in a position to provide fine detail around the total number of staff who may exit SA Pathology — some staff will leave.”

While the PwC report recommending an overhaul of the service did not specify a job cuts figure, a Government analysis quoted by Health and Wellbeing Minister Stephen Wade put the number at 200 from the 1400 workforce.

The report recommends closing 10 of 90 collection centres and aims for savings of $35 million a year by 2022.

However, Dr Dodd noted SA Pathology’s internal reforms are not bound to follow the PwC recommendations.

In April, Mr Wade guaranteed there would be no privatisation before a review in 12 months.

While Dr Dodd said SA Pathology’s efficiency plan is on track to reach the 2019-20 target, it then faces savings targets of $18 million, then $34 million in the following two years.

He noted there was no private pathology service in SA at present which can provide the full spectrum of services that SA Pathology provides, which run from a wide range of diagnostic tests to training and research work, and “appropriate arrangements” would be needed in country areas if private providers take over.

“My intention is for SA Pathology to continue as provider of public services,” he said, adding that staff are “optimistic” about turning the service around.

Earlier, consultant Selina Speer said moves to privatisation in Queensland in 2013 had been “diabolical” and “extraordinarily traumatic on a human level”.

She likened removing pathology from public health services as ripping a hole in a knitted woollen jumper then trying to deal with the loose threads, “otherwise the system starts to unravel”.

“It can be done but it takes a long time to tie off each cut thread,” she said.

“Being mindful of the value it gives to clinicians and its contribution to the sustainability of the health care system (outsourcing) doesn’t make sense.”