Blog
Easter & ANZAC weekends
Our collection centres will be closed on the Easter and ANZAC day public holidays.
Restricted hospital access
Nelson Hospital and Wairau Hospital are currently restricting access to the hospital. This means that our hospital based collection centres are not open to community patients, except for exceptional circumstances. Please ensure you book at a community based clinic in the first instance. See our list of collection centres for options.
Can we improve our online booking system?
We are looking at ways we can improve our online blood test booking system and would love your feedback. If you have used this online system, we would really appreciate it if you could spare a minute to complete a very brief survey. Your feedback will help ensure the booking system is user-friendly and makes […]
Queen’s birthday weekend
All of our collection centres will be closed on Monday June 7 for the Queen’s birthday. Normal business hours will resume on Tuesday June 8.
Changes to vaginal culture swab processing
We have been reviewing our laboratory processes for vaginal culture swabs. The main purpose of this test is to detect bacterial vaginosis (BV) or candidiasis in women with vaginal discharge or othersymptoms of vaginitis. The Gram stain is the gold standard investigation for both BV and candidiasis.(1-3) BV diagnosis utilises a validated scoring system based […]
Patient Report Upgrades
Medlab South and Asia Pacific Healthcare Group (APHG) are scheduling an upgrade for the reports generated for Histology, Non-gynae Cytology, Bone Marrow, Flow Cytometry and Post-Mortem tests. Read more >>>
Bowel Screening Report Changes
Medlab South and Asia Pacific Healthcare Group (APHG) are scheduling an upgrade for rich text reports on the evening of March 25, 2021. Reformatted Bowel Screening Programme reports are included as part of this change. Read more >>
Christmas and New Year Hours
All of our Collection Centres will be closed for the public holidays over Christmas and New Year. Tahunanui and Temuka will be closed from December 21st. For a full list of all closures during the holiday period read more below: Collection Centre Holiday Hours >>>
World Antimicrobial Awareness Week
It’s that exciting time of year again! For World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2020 (WAAW), the World Health Organisation has selected the slogan “Antimicrobials: Handle with care. United to preserve antimicrobials.” You will notice that we now talk in terms of “antimicrobials” rather than “antibiotics” because we recognise that resistance in organisms other than bacteria (such […]
Axe the Fax
Medlab South is making changes in the way we communicate with referrers. This is in response to the June 2019 Ministry of Health and Accident Compensation Commission joint communique defining secure communication within the New Zealand health sector, specifically in regards to email and faxing. Read the Ministry Directive here We have developed solutions to […]