Pathology Services on Verge of Collapse in South Africa

A recent article published on the web indicated that pathology services in Johannesburg, South Africa, are on the verge of collapse (see: Joburg pathology services collapsing). Below is an excerpt from it with boldface emphasis mine:

State pathology services in Johannesburg are on the brink of collapse, posing a threat to thousands of patients. By the end of May only four anatomical pathologists - responsible for diagnosing cancer among state patients - will be left at the Johannesburg branch of the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) to deal with the 53 000 tissue samples the service receives each year. At the moment there are 12 full-time, one part-time and two sessional pathologists (both approaching 80 years) dealing with the caseload. By the end of May, eight of these will have left, taking 63 years of experience with them. And at least one of the remaining four has plans to resign in the next six months....Reasons for the resignations vary from uncompetitive salaries to increasing workloads and the lack of opportunity to pursue an academic career....A breast cancer specialist said the turn-around time for the results of a biopsy was about two weeks. This would change when the consultants left....With more than 250 labs, the NHLS is the largest diagnostic pathology service in South Africa. It serves 80 percent of the country's population.

This article caught my attention because we face a similar aging and retirement problem in the clinical laboratories with our critically important medical technologist population. Mitch Fiszer,  President of Diagnostic Recruiting, delivered a lecture in 2004 (The Laboratory staffing shortage: How did we get here? (and how do we get out?!!!) in which he indicated, citing AACC data on overhead #14, that 72% of medical technologists were older than age 40. Here's a Q and A session, also presented by the AACC, with more details about the medical technologist shortage from him.

It was surprising to me that I couldn't find any more recent information about this problem on the web. I can only assume that it is continuing unabated but perhaps with less hand wringing. I have been told by many that the keen interest in clinical labs about rules and middleware, frequently highlighted in this blog, is based on an anticipated shortage of medical technologists. The basic idea behind this interest is that rules deployment will help to ameliorate some of the anticipated personnel shortages. However, I have a premonition that we are already experiencing a significant lab personnel problem in the U.S. similar to that which is well underway in Johannesburg.