\u201cRight now is a decisive moment,\u201d G\u00e9linas said, adding that Health Minister Sylvia Jones \u201cneeds to act quickly to ensure Northerners have equitable access.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019 press secretary, Ema Popovic, told Sudbury.com following the media event at West\u2019s office that the province is not doing anything about the laboratory\u2019s closure, which at the latest update was expected to be finalized sometime this spring.<\/p>\n
Sudbury.com first reported on the impending closure<\/a> in January, at which time it was noted that while LifeLabs\u2019 collection centres would remain open, they\u2019re closing their regional laboratory in Sudbury and putting approximately 40 medical professionals out of work.<\/p>\n On March 19, West said that LifeLabs has since made a \u201cvague commitment\u201d to keep one or two local employees on board, but \u201cour sense was that they would be employees that can be quietly laid off in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n With the local laboratory’s closure, medical tests currently collected locally will soon be tested in southern Ontario.<\/p>\n Although LifeLabs and Health Minister Sylvia Jones have both said the local laboratory\u2019s closure will not affect local service levels, this point has been refuted.<\/p>\n During a pre-budget public meeting in Sudbury earlier this year, Medical Laboratory Professionals Association of Ontario representative Jessie Clelland told provincial officials the closure will be \u201cdetrimental to this community<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n This point was reiterated during the March 19 media event at West\u2019s office, at which the MPP described the laboratory\u2019s closure as the No. 1 concern residents have raised since he was first elected to office in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are right on the end of digging out from a winter storm that paralyzed our highways for two days,\u201d West told local journalists. \u201cWe know it\u2019s not uncommon to have highway closures across the North on a regular basis, so a lot of people are very concerned about what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n During the media event, area resident Stacy King said her father, Richard, requires regular blood work due to his cancer. On a recent Wednesday morning, he went to LifeLabs for testing at the request of his doctor. The results came in that afternoon, and his doctor said he needed to get a blood transfusion immediately.<\/p>\n \u201cDad\u2019s hemoglobin had fallen to critical levels and we had to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n \u201cThank goodness we got the results back swiftly from LifeLabs, because even though I rushed over and took dad to the ER, it was a further 10-hour wait until we could start the blood transfusion.\u201d<\/p>\n Fast results, King said, \u201ccan literally mean life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n Retired lab technician Jan O\u2019Leary, who worked in the local hospital system for 30 years before retiring 17 years ago, said there\u2019s a short window for non-frozen samples to get tested, which is in some cases 24 hours.<\/p>\n \u201cSample integrity is diminished and in some cases may be irretrievable,” she said, adding that in cases where tests are taken prior to starting certain medications or antibiotics, they cannot be repeated in the event they\u2019re held up in traffic on their way to a southern Ontario laboratory.<\/p>\n LifeLabs\u2019 impending closure was announced to staff late last year, prompting immediate criticism from both G\u00e9linas and West in Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n This was followed by Mayor Paul Lefebvre urging the province to keep the laboratory open<\/a>, Sudbury East\u2014Manitoulin\u2014Nickel Belt Conservative MP Jim B\u00e9langer reiterating this message<\/a>, Liberal MP Viviane Lapointe expressing concern<\/a> to federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel, and city council unanimously voting to push the province to take \u201cimmediate action<\/a>\u201d on the closure.<\/p>\n Sudbury.com sent an inquiry to Health Minister Sylvia Jones press secretary Ema Popovic on March 19 asking, \u201cHas the Ministry of Health done anything to prevent this closure, or does the ministry plan on doing anything to prevent the laboratory’s closure?\u201d alongside requesting a phone interview.<\/p>\n Popovic responded with a written statement instead of granting an interview, which is the consistent approach among ministry staff under the Ford government.<\/p>\n In Popovic\u2019s statement, the answer to Sudbury.com\u2019s question was ultimately no.<\/p>\n \u201cLifeLabs, not the Ministry of Health, is responsible for their own service delivery and operations,\u201d Popovic wrote. \u201cWe are not involved in those decisions, however, we have been assured that there will be no impact to service delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n LifeLabs is privately owned by U.S.-based Quest Diagnostics, which made the decision to close the Sudbury laboratory.<\/p>\n Although there was more to the statement Popovic provided, it didn\u2019t directly relate to the impending closure of LifeLabs\u2019 regional laboratory in Sudbury.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are adding 700 more educational seats for healthcare professionals in Ontario\u2019s colleges and universities, including medical laboratory technologists,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have expanded the Learn and Stay Grant, which covers the tuition and educational expenses for students in a healthcare program in exchange for a term of work in their area of study, to include medical laboratory technologists. Nearly 3,800 learners have already received funding through the grant to help pay for their post-secondary education.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have also expanded six new collection sites to make it more convenient for northern and rural communities to get lab tests closer to home.<\/p>\n \u201cOur government has also established \u2018As of Right\u2019 rules for health care professionals, including lab technologists, which allows professionals registered in other jurisdictions to begin to practice in Ontario immediately, helping increase access to care across Ontario, including in rural and northern communities.\u201d<\/p>\n West also brought up the Learn and Stay Grant during the May 19 media event, at which he argued the closure of Sudbury\u2019s regional LifeLabs laboratory will slash work opportunities in the region by approximately 40 positions and push technologists to southern Ontario.<\/p>\n Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LifeLabs has commenced steps to close Sudbury\u2019s regional laboratory this spring, and the office of Health Minister Sylvia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,217518,84,392,217517],"class_list":["post-563686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-france-gelinas-complaintslifelabs-sudburylifelabs-sudbury-closuregreater-sudbury-lifelabs-testing-centre-motion-2026","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-lifelabslifelabs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"190326_tc_ndp_lifelabs3\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/190326_tc_ndp_lifelabs3.JPG;w=960.jpeg\"\/)
\nPatient advocate Stacy King speaks about how important timely medical test results are to her father, Richard, during a media conference at Nickel Belt NDP MPP Jamie West\u2019s office on March 19. Tyler Clarke \/ Sudbury.com
<\/p>\n![\"190326_tc_ndp_lifelabs2\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/190326_tc_ndp_lifelabs2.JPG;w=960.jpeg\"\/)
\nRetired technologist Jan O\u2019Leary speaks during a media conference at Sudbury NDP MPP Jamie West\u2019s office on March 19. To the left is Nickel Belt NDP MPP France G\u00e9linas and to the right is West and patient advocate Stacy King. Tyler Clarke \/ Sudbury.com
<\/p>\n