Canadian medical labs face staff shortages, funding needed for training students: association

Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario CEO Michelle Hoad explains what’s driving staffing shortages in medical labs nationwide

Canada is facing a shortage of lab technologists, and one organization says funding for student placements is needed to address shortage.

An August report from the Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario (MLPAO) says 68 per cent of labs in the province continue to experience medical laboratory technologists (MLT) shortages.

Lab technologists are responsible for analyzing medical samples like blood and urine to help doctors diagnose, treat and monitor thousands of diseases and disorders.

According to the association, 70 per cent of medical decisions are based on lab results, highlighting the urgent need to address staffing shortage.

“Everything that happens in our health-care system goes through testing,” Michelle Hoad, CEO of the MLPAO, told CTV News Channel on Monday. “If we’re not around, the health-care system would not work, so it’s important that we keep investing in this group.”

Hoad suggests that because there is a staffing shortage, labs are unable to take students for their clinical placement, which is required during their studies. This is creating a “bottleneck,” or congestion issue with onboarding new personnel to MLT positions from school programs.

“We have lots of kids interested in getting in, but we need to get them trained,” she said. “We’re asking the ministry to help us provide what we call preceptors or trainers to train students.”

According to the Canadian Alliance of Medical Laboratory Professionals Regulators (CAMLPR), the shortage of MLTs is due to several reasons, including a large number of MLTs at or beyond the age of 50, highlighting the need to replace retirees. Other reasons include a lack of interest or knowledge to pursue the career and insufficient funding for educational programs.

To help address the MLT shortage across Canada, the CAMLPR has also been working to reform its registration process to help get workers into the workforce quicker.

Some of these initiatives include removing employment barriers for internationally educated medical laboratory technologists (IEMLT) and science-based degree holders so they can enter the workforce and be recognized as MLTs.

For Hoad, continued efforts across the board on getting new personnel into the MLT profession are needed.

“We’re hoping the ministry will look at funding preceptors; that’s the next phase,” Hoad said. “They have done a tremendous job and we appreciate the funding. We just need to open that bottleneck to get more MLTs in our labs.”