New Brunswick to open public health lab in Moncton in 2024
Lab expected to cost more than $10 million
The New Brunswick government plans to open a public health laboratory in Moncton by 2024 at a cost of about $10 million.
Health Minister Dorothy Shephard announced the plan Wednesday morning with work expected to begin this fall.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need for New Brunswick to have its own provincial public health laboratory to ensure a dedicated public health response," Shephard said.
The new lab at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre will be separate from an existing microbiology lab that tested hundreds of thousands of samples as part of the pandemic response.
Shephard said that reduced the lab's ability to carry out its regular work testing patient samples.
"Because of limited human resources, the clinical laboratory had to prioritize COVID-19 testing over certain tests normally offered," Shephard said.
About 15 staff at the existing microbiology lab added to expand capacity during the pandemic will be shifted to the new lab and another 11 are expected to be hired.
Stéphane Legacy, vice-president outpatient and professional services with Vitalité Health Network, told reporters he doesn't expect challenges with recruitment of lab staff.
"We'll need specialized staff, which we'll probably have to hire from other provinces, but yet we still have the core of what we need right now to start the new endeavour," Legacy said.
Space near the existing lab in the hospital will be renovated to make room for the new public health lab, which will occupy 929 square metres.
Shephard said the lab should help reduce turnaround time for tests, provide a single location to store data and carry out environmental testing on things like water and soil.
It will also be a location for provincial and federal research.
The province says a lab at the Saint John Regional Hospital will continue to handle samples of potential bio-terrorism, enteric bacteria and mycobacterial cultures.
Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province's chief medical officer of health, said the lab will allow most public health testing to be done within the province.
"We were behind the other provinces, so this is a step forward to making sure we're aligned with the other provinces," Russell said when asked about whether the lab could be used to test samples from other jurisdictions.
She said there will still need to be samples that must be sent to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg for testing.
The lab was a commitment in the province's health plan released last year.