As an endometrial cancer survivor, Linda Luyt is very anxious as she awaits the results of her annual Pap test to show that she is still free of the disease.
It usually takes between three and six weeks to receive a letter with the all-clear, she said, noting that her doctor would call sooner if there was an abnormal result.
“I’m waiting for the phone to not ring,” she said from her home in Sudbury, Ont.
But this year, his ninth since cancer surgery, Luyt has been waiting two months since his Pap test in October and getting the results could very well take a lot longer. When she called her doctor’s office to inquire, she was told that they had only received the results in November for tests taken in June.
As restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic eased and people returned to in-person consultations, there was a continued increase in tests ordered for patients.– Mark Bernardt, Dynacare spokesperson
“You think you’ve closed the door to cancer, but every year when I have to go for this check-up, the door opens again — not all the way, but it’s there,” Luyt said. “You think, ‘oh my God, I have to have that check. What if he comes back?’
Province-wide backlog
Luyt is one of many people in Ontario caught in a backlog of Pap results. LifeLabs and Dynacare, large private labs that process millions of tests a year, acknowledged delays but neither quantified the extent.
Pap tests can detect precancerous cell changes in the cervix. Luyt worries not just for herself, but for people who might find out they had cancer growing inside them while they wait for delayed test results.
Both LifeLabs and Dynacare said the backlog can be attributed to staffing shortages and increased demand at this stage of the pandemic.
“As restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic eased and people returned to in-person consultations, there has been a continued increase in tests ordered for patients,” Dynacare spokesperson Mark Bernardt said. , in a written statement.
Additionally, LifeLabs – which processes nearly 700,000 Pap tests a year – said there has been a global decline in the number of cytotechnologists, the specialists who look for precancerous cellular changes. Only 12 to 14 new cytotechnologists graduate each year in Canada, the society said.
Michelle Hoad, CEO of the Association of Medical Laboratory Professionals of Ontario, said there was a general shortage of laboratory professionals in the province, but it was particularly felt in specialties such as cytology.
“The number of Pap smears actually went down during the pandemic because, as you know, we weren’t going for in-person visits and the number of surgeries being done went down, so as a result, we didn’t really noticed the scarcity with this group,” she said.
“But what’s starting to happen now is everybody’s going back to their family doctor, and they’re having their medicals and they’re having Pap smears and surgeries are piling up. So all of these tests are going into this bottleneck of this highly specialized group.”
Hoad said many solutions to the problem are years away from having an effect, such as increasing the number of medical laboratory technologist programs and increasing the number of people current programs can accept.
“Of the six (medical laboratory technologist) programs in the province, they all have waiting lists to enroll,” Hoad said. “So there are tons of people interested in the profession, there just aren’t enough places.”
WATCH | Delayed Pap test results:
Pap test results take months in many parts of the country, due to an increase in pandemic-delayed test requests and a lack of staff to analyze them.
Permanent contact with laboratories
NDP Health Critic France Gélinas asked about Luyt’s situation during Question Period last week, and Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the government is investing in the health system.
“We’re hiring and training additional health human resources, whether it’s lab technicians, personal support workers, nurses…doctors,” Jones said.
A spokesperson for Jones told The Canadian Press that the ministry is in “constant contact” with labs and Ontario Health – which oversees the health care system – to discuss Pap test turnaround times and is “monitoring” the results. lab plans to return to normal service levels.
Dynacare said it is working to partially reduce the backlog by using labs in other provinces and developing best practices for doctors ordering the tests.
LifeLabs noted that doctors can flag higher-risk patients so their samples can be processed more quickly.
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