Made-in-Hamilton Expertise (S2E3)

This month, we're featuring the Hamilton Regional Laboratory Medicine Program (HRLMP). Although physically separated by site, the MLTs and MLAs in the Virology Laboratory and the MLAs in the St. Joseph's Hospital and Hamilton General Hospital Core Laboratories worked together to process and analyze approximately 1200 COVID samples per day from hospitals, external assessment centers, and overflow work from Public Health Ontario Laboratories. Their lab developed and implemented a lab-developed made-in-Hamilton COVID PCR and respiratory assays, and shared this and their technical expertise and assay with other laboratories across Ontario. Over Zoom, our CEO Michelle Hoad spoke with Paula Costa - MLA in the virology lab at SJHH, Candy Rutherford - MLT, Technical Specialist in Virology at SJHH, and Katerina Hynes - MLA in the core lab at HGH about the last 10 months fighting COVID-19. Season 2 of the Dish focuses on how labs have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are rapidly ramping up testing and overcoming immeasurable odds testing for COVID-19, others are struggling or working on other testing while staff are re-deployed elsewhere. Join us as we follow one lab each month and explore how the pandemic is impacting labs across the province, from the patterns between to specific local situations.