Canada’s medical labs could face a staffing crisis just as baby boomers enter their golden years, says a national association of medical laboratory technologists.

The demand for medical tests for older Canadians — everything from sugar tests for diabetes patients to prostate cancer screenings — is expected to explode in the next few decades as the number of Canadians over 65 rises to a quarter of the population by 2036.

That trend is on a collision course with a mass exodus of medical laboratory technologists into retirement — approximately half the entire workforce, roughly 5,000 people, over the next 10 years, reports the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science (CSMLS). The future strain on both public and private labs has become a big concern for medical technologists, whose needs tend to take a back seat to those of doctors and nurses in the public health care debate.

“We might not be visible to the public eye, but there is a trust that we’re there doing the job and that we’re doing it accurately, precisely and with the upmost quality,” said society president Tania Toffner in an interview ahead of a news conference set for today. “We care for them even though they might not see us.”

The crunch is already being felt in rural and remote communities, where clinics struggle to hire technologists, said Toffner. The price is slower test results because samples have to be ferried to urban centers, turning wait times of hours into days, she said.

“We want to ensure these Canadians have the same access to high-quality health care as the rest of the country,” said Toffner.

The society wants to see the federal government copy a recent decision by the government of British Columbia to include lab technologists in a loan forgiveness program if the technologists spends five years in a rural community. Doctors and nurses already have a similar arrangement in a federal loan forgiveness program, she said.

The sector also is facing a bottleneck in the 27 academic programs that train medical technologists across Canada. The programs shrank after a consolidation among schools in the 1990s, which lead to a lack of work placements for students. The society would like to see reforms in the academic programming to allow for more student training — perhaps through the use of simulation technology instead of direct work placements, said Toffner.

In recent years, the Conservatives have rolled out a broader skills training agenda that the CSMLS could tie to its demands, said Toffner. The society is planning to lobby officials from Employment and Social Development Canada, she said.

Lab technologists in Canada perform over 440 million tests a year, she said.