In BC and Ontario, they’ve targeted LifeLabs, which was quietly bought up by the American company, Quest Diagnostics, in summer 2024.
Quest Diagnostics is a Fortune 500 giant that profited greatly off the COVID-19 crisis, raking in a record $3B for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2020.This company and its multimillionaire CEO & President James Davis have deep pockets from the profit they make off America’s private healthcare system.
Now Davis is siphoning our public dollars – all of which should be going towards building a safe and dependable lab service -- into cheques for wealthy investors (including himself).
Quest estimated that its LifeLabs acquisition would bring in $970M of revenue a year.
In Canada, healthcare profiteering happens two ways:
- Charging patients for services not covered by the province.
- Shortchanging frontline workers who deliver services: By underpaying workers, understaffing/under-resourcing medical centres, and laying off staff, private companies can pocket more and dish out better dividends to shareholders.
LifeLabs staff are currently paid less than public health workers doing the same job. Starting wage for a Lab Assistant at LifeLabs in BC is $25.27 vs Hospitals $29.27 plus a signing bonus at some hospitals. This makes it hard to recruit and retain good workers which means worse patient care. There are especially large disparities in benefits and compensation for some jobs like Medical Laboratory Technologists (Wages are 11.2% - 12.3% less than hospitals).
Find out more about what Quest is doing to LifeLabs workers in BC
LifeLabs has always been a private for-profit, but with Quest at the wheel, these local workers are coming up against a multinational giant, which means they need everyone’s support.
Better working conditions for them = better, safer, reliable lab service for us.