OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas issued the following statement today to mark National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week.
Dear friends:
It’s impossible to imagine modern health care without medical lab professionals.
Medical lab professionals see things no one else sees. They look right into your body to find the information that helps doctors make the majority of their diagnoses. They take samples of your blood, body fluids, tissues, and cells, and they analyze them to explain why your body is doing what it is doing. The information they provide to doctors leads directly to accurate diagnoses, as well as to treatments that are tailored to patients.
Without medical lab professionals, medicine today would be stuck in the nineteenth century.
OPSEU is very proud to represent, at last count, more than 6,000 medical lab professionals. These days, it is impossible to imagine OPSEU without them.
Lab technologists were among the first workers outside the Ontario Public Service to ever join our union. In the 1970s, these workers saw a reflection of themselves in OPSEU. They wanted a union that would recognize their vital role in the health care system and provide union services in a professional manner. Lab professionals got that from OPSEU then, and they get it from OPSEU today. That’s why we remain the union of choice for medical lab professionals across Ontario.
At our recent Convention, delegates recognized Sara Labelle, chair of our Hospital Professionals Division, by electing her Second Vice-President of OPSEU. I can assure you that her voice, and the voice of all medical lab professionals, is heard loud and clear on our Executive Board and across our entire union.
This year, National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week runs from April 16-22. I am proud to salute medical lab professionals and delighted that so many have chosen OPSEU. The next time you need a lab test, think of them and the work they do for all of us.
In solidarity,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union