Dubbo Covid testing: Pathology providers picking up wrong tests

The Dubbo mother of an immunocompromised child, living in an isolated household full of close contacts, is yet to receive results of tests taken over a week ago after her results went missing.

A Dubbo mum claims she’s still awaiting the results of Covid tests carried out more than a week ago and has been kept in the dark by pathology providers about what happened to the results.

The mother of four, who has chosen to remain anonymous, said her family had been in isolation after two children were deemed to be close contacts of confirmed Covid cases at two Dubbo schools.

Dubbo locals at the drive-through testing clinic. Picture: Dean Marzolla

She said on August 17, the family went to the Dubbo Showground drive-through clinic to get Covid tests, but the results of three tests have still not been delivered.

“I’m not sure which pathology lab our tests went to … apparently one car can be done by two different pathology labs which is what happened to my son and daughter,” the woman told The Dubbo News.

“Laverty did my daughter, no one has my two sons or my results from August 17.”

After calling pathology providers Histopath and Laverty multiple times, the woman tried to contact NSW Health for help, however she was told only a private provider would have access to the results as the tests were not done by the health department.

“I’m sick of trying and being sent round in circles,” the woman wrote in an email to NSW Health.

“Dubbo needs more pathology teams and resources.”

Workers at a Covid-19 drive through test centre. Picture: NCA NewsWire

Her experience was shared by other users on social media who have voiced frustrations about waiting up to a week in isolation for test results, test results going missing and being forced to get retested.

A spokeswoman from Healius, the company that owns Laverty Pathology, said staff were working around the clock to support the community and process more than 30,000 tests a day.

“We are aware that there were some issues at the Covid drive through testing site at Dubbo,” she said.

“At times there has been some confusion with patients changing lanes to a different provider, or where one provider inadvertently picks up the sample of another. We have spoken with the other providers and are progressing a number of improvements to prevent further incidents going forward.”

Dubbo MP Dugald Saunders speaks to the media after a snap lockdown was announced on August 11. Picture: Ryan Young

Dubbo MP Dugald Saunders said he was aware of reports about missing tests, however he said he could not verify that any had been lost.

“The tests and the results coming back has been something I’ve been talking about for two weeks now,” Mr Saunders said.

“It’s been a constant problem.

“There’s been some really good periods, where there’s no doubt results have been coming back super fast … we’ve had pathology testing clinics all around the region and in Sydney affected by isolating staff themselves.”

To help reduce the testing backlog and increase result delivery times, Mr Saunders said the NSW Government was investing in new technology.

Western NSW Local Health District chief executive Scott McLachlan said testing machines to deliver faster results had been rolled out to Walgett, Bourke and Bathurst health services.

“That’s been a great addition to our artillery in trying to test quickly and get people results,” he said.

“We’re looking this afternoon at a whole range of new technology that’s about to come into Australia, that’ll enable us to offer mobile testing solutions and drop into a community if we do have an outbreak or some cases and rapidly test a large proportion of the population.

“That might still be a week or two away.”