Otago anniversary day
All SCL collection centres in the Otago region will be closed on Monday 21 March for the Otago anniversary day.
LDL calculation change SDHB
From October 11, 2021 the biochemistry laboratory is changing the way that LDL cholesterol (LDLC) is calculated on the lipid profile. The current calculation (Friedewald’s formula) has been in use for almost 50 years. It estimates LDLC from the total cholesterol (TC), HDL cholesterol (HDLC) and triglyceride (TG) concentrations. The calculation assumes that triglyceride-containing lipoproteins […]
Changes to vaginal culture swab processing
We have been reviewing our laboratory processes for vaginal culture swabs. The main purpose of this test is to detect bacterial vaginosis (BV) or candidiasis in women with vaginal discharge or othersymptoms of vaginitis. The Gram stain is the gold standard investigation for both BV and candidiasis.(1-3) BV diagnosis utilises a validated scoring system based […]
Patient Report Upgrades
Southern Community Labs and Asia Pacific Healthcare Group (APHG) are scheduling an upgrade for the reports generated for Histology, Non-gynae Cytology, Bone Marrow, Flow Cytometry and Post-Mortem tests. Read more >>
Bowel Screening Report Changes
Southern Community Labs and Asia Pacific Healthcare Group (APHG) are scheduling an upgrade for rich text reports on the evening of March 25, 2021. Reformatted Bowel Screening Programme reports are included as part of this change. Read more >>
COVID Testing Anniversary
The 13th March 2021 marks 1 year since testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was introduced at SCL Dunedin. Since then, SCL has expanded testing to 9 laboratories in its South Island network, with the Dunedin laboratory having performed over 80,000 tests. This represents a massive amount of work by the laboratory scientists, […]
Blood Lead Testing – Unavailable at SCL
Public Health free blood lead testing is not availabe at SCL Patient Service Centres. Please refer to the information on the DCC or Southern Health websites for information about free testing locations – see links below: https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/news-and-events/public-notices/alerts/water-notice https://www.southernhealth.nz/publications/community-blood-test-clinics-be-set-waikouaiti-next-week
World Antimicrobial Awareness Week
It’s that exciting time of year again! For World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2020 (WAAW), the World Health Organisation has selected the slogan “Antimicrobials: Handle with care. United to preserve antimicrobials.” You will notice that we now talk in terms of “antimicrobials” rather than “antibiotics” because we recognise that resistance in organisms other than bacteria (such […]
University of Otago MELS 410 Medical Laboratory Science for Rural Health
Rural recruitment has always been part of the challenge of running a laboratory service across the Southern region for SCL. For example, in mid-2018, SCL Dunstan advertised widely for a full time laboratory worker. There were no suitable NZ educated applicants and so a Philippine qualified Technician, who had been working in Qatar, was appointed […]
Vitamin D Testing Criteria
Vitamin D tests were originally developed for investigation of rickets, osteomalacia and other metabolic bone disorders. In recent years the number of requests for vitamin D tests has increased dramatically. Most of these requests are unrelated to metabolic bone disease, and have arisen because of reported associations between various disease states (cancers,cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune […]