@gemlog hospital is a 45 or more trip for me each way, LifeLabs is down the street

@Canageek Up to you. Change takes effort I guess.

@gemlog @Canageek Can I do that? I thought that to get bloodwork done at a hospital, I had to be admitted or referred by my family physician 🤔

@shahaan
I dunno. I'm in a small town in northern BC.
You just go to the hospital and there is a 'take a number' thing on the wall near the lab. You do need to check in with reception and your lab requisition from your doctor first, yes.
It's a 20-25 minute walk from my doctor's office, but I'm just stubborn I guess.
The hospital is always looking for donations for equipment and so on. I think this is a good help. Why pay a corp in TO for what can be done in town faster?
@Canageek

@gemlog @Canageek Hmm. I’ll have to see about this. There’s a hospital close by so it’s convenient. Thanks for the info :)

@shahaan
I think you live out east, but you can check - I think a lab tech friend told me. Or a nurse maybe.
Anyhow, a friend doubted me, so I wrote to BC Med and asked and they confirmed they pay the exact same rate to my local hospital as they do to Life Labs. I try to let everyone know. Life Labs is a racket in my opinion.
@Canageek

@gemlog @shahaan Yeah, I think the restrictions might be tighter in cities to keep hospital visits low. The only other place the Dr said I could get this testing done was on the other side of the city, over an hour away

@gemlog @Canageek yeah I’m in Peel region (Ontario). I’ll keep this in mind next time I go for a checkup. Will ask the doc how it works over here

@shahaan
The doctors here clump up in the same building. A consortium of docs leases or buys/builds it. Then lifelab and shoppers(loblaw) is located there and some other things on the main floor. I imagine (but i do NOT know) they get a kickback for sending patients to lifelabs. seems incestuous to me anyhow.
@Canageek

@gemlog @shahaan The doctor here encourages me to go directly to the lab that does the tests for BC (all the tests are shipped there), but its a LONG way away, so I tend to go to the local lifelabs since well, 90 minutes each way is a long freaking time.

@Canageek
they do all my tests locally at the hospital. just different locals I guess.
@shahaan

@gemlog Are you sure? I thought all STI testing was centralized to a gov lab in Vancouver, they just shipped all the blood there each day.

@Canageek I don't know anything about such tests. I've been celibate for many years. I was just talking about blood, stool and urine tests in general. I don't know how STl tests differ.
All I know is that I p/u narcotics and bank bags off a charter plane each morning and shipped out bank bags, vet and lifelabs samples out each late afternoon and that my tests are done in town at the hospital with results in hours. Part-time gig I did for 5 years.
I don't know how things work down south.

@shahaan
My health region is quite large with few people. 600,000km^2. Nothing to do with covid as I've been simply going to the hospital with my lab requisitions for many years.
I don't know how things are done down in the big cities.
@Canageek

@shahaan
You'll still need the requisition for blood work from your doc. Just give it to the hospital instead of lifelabs. That's how it works here in bc. ymmv.
@Canageek