Laboratory

The laboratory is located on the 1st floor of the hospital. For general inquiries, the department can be reached at 705-324-6111 extension 4432.

The laboratory is provincially accredited and provides the following services: specimen collection, ECGs, and analytical testing in clinical chemistry, hematology, bloodbank, microbiology, and anatomical pathology. The laboratory currently performs over 400,000 tests each year.

The laboratory team consists of highly trained individuals committed to providing exceptional care to all patients. Our team members include:

Pathologist/Medical Director

Medical Laboratory Technologists - licenced by College of Medical Laboratory Technologists of Ontario

Laboratory Technicians - certified by Ontario Society of Medical Technologists

Clerical staff

Those who are attending hospital clinics (e.g. pre-operative assessment, diabetes program) may have their blood work done Monday to Friday from 8:00am to 2:00pm.

A physician's order is required to perform laboratory tests. Patients must also bring both their red Ross Memorial Hospital card and their Health card. As a patient, if you do not have a red Ross Memorial Hospital card, please go to the admitting department first and have a card made. In the event that patients arrive at the laboratory without a red hospital card, laboratory staff will direct patients to the admitting department prior to processing patient information for laboratory testing.

Community Blood Testing

Following a review of Community Patient Blood Testing in the Ross Memorial Hospital's Laboratory, we're notifying our Community Patients that, as of July 27th, we will no longer be accepting community blood testing orders (those that have not been issued by the Hospital, rather by a physician in the community).

While we regret the inconvenience this may cause some people, we hope that you understand our motivation for this change. The RMH Laboratory is not funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care to provide these routine outpatient tests. By transitioning them to community laboratories which are funded, the Hospital can better focus its resources on acute care services. This will help us to provide more immediate results to our patients in the Emergency Department and other inpatient areas.

There are no additional costs incurred when visiting a community laboratory for tests covered by OHIP, and these labs are held to the same provincial standards as the RMH Laboratory. Part of our review involved consultation with the operators of these labs, and they indicate they have the capacity to handle the increased workload.