Push by new firm to grab fierce rival's cancer work

New company Labtests is attacking the last significant pillar of its rival's Auckland territory - the test for signs of cervical cancer.

Labtests, under a taxpayer-funded contract worth $70 million a year, is part way through its takeover of the region's community laboratory service from Diagnostic Medlab (DML).

DML, after losing a hard-fought battle to retain its lucrative contract with Auckland's three health boards for around 30,000 tests a day, has had to be content with private-sector work, such as for insurance clients, and its more than 100,000 smear tests a year for the National Cervical Screening Programme.

But Labtests' chief executive, Ulf Lindskog, said yesterday that on behalf of its South Island-based sister company, Southern Community Laboratory, Labtests had begun a push to take over Auckland cervical smear testing.

He said switching to Southern Community's cervical smear tests would be easier for the clinic.

Smears were often taken at the same time as a urine sample and a swab for chlamydia. All three could be requested on a single test order form and retrieved in a single pick-up.

Southern Community and DML both use liquid-based cytology for cervical smears, although they use different, incompatible systems: Southern Community uses SurePath and DML ThinPrep.

Both are free to patients in Auckland, although women may face a fee for the smear-taker's work, depending on the clinic.

"All the clinicians need to do is contact us; we provide them with the vials," said Mr Lindskog.

"Southern Community Laboratories has been in the Auckland market before and has had great uptake."

When asked if he hoped to take over all the cervical smear testing in the region, he said: "Our feedback is that clinicians are very interested in sending smears to Labtests. It provides a much easier option and a more streamlined option in testing and reporting."

But DML chief executive Arthur Morris said: "I wouldn't imagine much, if any, of the cervical smear work will go to Southern Community because everyone knows it will be going [south].

"We've explained to people that the ThinPrep that comes our way will be processed and reported in Auckland. There's massive support from general practice to keep the smears with us."

Dr Morris acknowledged that doing so would require doctors and nurses to separate cervical smears from other samples.

"But it's only a matter of pushing an extra button ... so you've got a request form for the microbiology and a request form for the cervical cytology.

"I think it's a shame if work goes out of Auckland. We've got 30 to 40 smear readers and pathologists who have served Auckland extremely well over a protracted period."

Dr Morris said making comparisons with previous smears would be more difficult.

But Dr John Cameron, a GP and the medical executive of Auckland primary care group Procare Health, said that with modern transport, smears going to the South Island posed no problems.