Kronos Pathology -

Sometimes someone power hungry makes a new rule at your workplace. It's unnecessary. Its counterproductive. It’s an irritant. It removes some of the pleasure and meaning from your work, but you tell yourself it's all right, it's not worth complaining about. Then it happens again. But by failing to react the first time, you have trained yourself to accept such things, and shown the power-hungry types that enjoy their little displays of power, that their mind games are ok. The second time it happens, you're a little less courageous. Your opponent, thus far unopposed, is a little bit stronger. The institution, a little more corrupt. The process of bureaucratic stagnation and oppression is underway, and you've unwittingly contributed, by pretending that is was OK. Why not complain? Why not take a stand? If you do, other people, equally afraid to speak up, may come to your defence. Dr Phil, that wise old sage of day time tv says ‘You teach people how to treat you, by what you accept’. Perhaps a little victim blamish in today’s current political climate, but by God the man speaks some harsh truths. Sure, people will push your boundaries, and they will lash out when you draw your line in the sand, but you teach people how to treat you by what behaviour you accept from them. If your friends are always late, it’s because you wait for them. If you said fuck it, and left without them, they would soon learn. If your partner repeatedly cheats on you, it’s because they know you will take them back. Stop that shit right now. You are more often than not 50% responsible for how people repeatedly treat you. If your workplace treats you like shit, it’s time to find a job somewhere else, where your soul is in less danger.

For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36)’. {12 rules for life, an antidote to chaos/ Jordan B. Peterson}.

I believe this story was born because of KRONOS Pathology. If I had to thank them for anything, it would be that. This doesn’t mean I don’t think they are morally corrupt, just that I know pure black and pure white don’t exist in nature. Nature, like hypocrisy, comes in shades of grey. Rules have always been and always will be made to be broken, and only selectively enforced. Money comes first, profit above all else. And most important of all, you’ve got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, and know when to walk away. Capitalism makes gamblers of us all. Some of us are a cautious gambler, some of us fly by the seat of our pants, but we all have to be gamblers.

The funny thing is that KRONOS Pathology has everything going for them. I mean they’re a multibillion-dollar company that provides an extremely important service to the public while being subsidised by the Australian taxpayers.

People use their service because they believe it's free, yet we’re all paying for it with our taxes. If the government took away the Medicare rebate, no one would go in for hundreds of dollars of blood tests if they just “felt tired” or had “mild stomach pains”. The public use and abuse the system beyond belief. Hypochondriacs demand blood tests for every imaginary twinge, and Doctors fob annoying patients off with an FBC to get them out the fucking door. KRONOS’s profits would halve overnight if patients had to personally foot the cost of their own pathology. It is beyond ridiculous how much some of the testing costs. A full blood count and an MBA profile costs $114.50. Add other standard tests like cholesterol, electrolytes, fasting blood sugars, as well transportation of specimens that need to be sent to other labs in Queensland or Melbourne, and your average blood test costs close to $1,000.

There are frequent flyer patients rocking up on an almost weekly basis for thousands of dollars’ worth of unnecessary testing. Sure, chemo patients require regular blood work, diabetics need regular monitoring, but you can bet your bottom dollar if pathology wasn’t covered by Medicare then far far fewer tests would be run. Patients already kick and squeal about paying for vitamin testing requested by naturopaths. They are happy to fork out hundreds of dollars to see a naturopath, but expect the tax payer to fund the pathology testing requested by their woo merchants. I’m prepared to concede that naturopaths may have a place in wellness, but the average slob going looking for answers with a naturopath is probably tired because they eat shit and don’t sleep enough, not because they have a thyroid condition that biomedicine refuses to acknowledge. A surprising number of people with untreated mental illness will insist they have lymes disease or a vitamin deficiency. If you still feel like crap after a dozen sessions with a psychiatrist and taking your meds, sure look into other options. But stop chasing woo merchant answers that reassure you that you are ‘unique’ and ‘special’ and beyond the skills of modern medicine. The harmony test, which lets you know the sex of your baby before your ultrasound due date, looks at the baby’s stem cells in your blood. This Test is not subsidised by the government, and costs $450, but people are practically running through the door and throwing their money at us rather than wait a couple of weeks for the ultrasound. We live in a society that wants answers now, cost be damned. But if someone else will pay for it, all the better.

For a skilled job, that is in high demand, requiring a certificate three in pathology (which is a minimum of 1 year as a trainee, with at least 1000 billable hours practical experience) the pay is pretty shit. The responsibility is huge, and KRONOS never has your back when a patient makes a complaint. Whether it is a fair complaint or not, KRONOS would throw you under the bus. Why do we continue to participate in such an industry? Why do we continue to do this job, for so little pay, and next to no appreciation? I can’t answer for everyone, but I would say for the most part, KRONOS preys on migrants and graduates desperate to get a foot in the door. Medically skilled migrants come to Australia and find their qualifications are not recognised. They are forced to do further study in Australia to have their qualifications recognised. KRONOS is seen as a stepping stone, a way to put food on the table while they battle the bureaucracy. A way to keep a foot in the medical industry and keep their skills sharp. Science has always been pushed as a safe industry. Kids were told science was a guarantee to a job. In recent years technological advances wiped out the biomedical science industry. Machines now do most of the work, and subsequently there is a glut of Science graduates fighting it out for far too few jobs. These graduates, desperate to get anything in the field, accept jobs as pathology collectors, hoping against hope that when a lab job comes up, they will have a fighting chance. The rest of us simply enjoy the work. A lot of people find it funny that you could enjoy sticking needles in people, but I do. In how many jobs do you get instant feedback? The moment I see a flash of red, I know I did a good job. I know that I am playing a part in keeping people healthy, finding answers to medical questions, and making people better again. It's a challenge. Each day you are faced with something different, a different individual, different veins, a different sickness. You never know what you will see next, so you keep learning, and growing, and getting better.

People are always willing to blame the collector. You didn’t apply pressure to the needle site and got a bruise: the collector’s fault. It took 2 goes to get enough blood because you didn’t drink any water even though you know you have difficult veins: the collector’s fault. Your brat chucked a tantrum about having a blood test: the collector’s fault. You got a bill for your blood tests because you see a naturopath instead of a doctor: the collector’s fault. And each and every time, no matter how ridiculous the complaint, KRONOS throws you under the bus and appeases whining patients. Pathology collectors are replaceable. For every trainee that is trained by KRONOS, they receive $10,000. KRONOS won’t recognise any other training, so you are forced to do their course. For every trainee registered with KRONOS, KRONOS receives $10,000 of government funding. The more trainees they put through, the more money they make. They don’t want long term, qualified staff because it costs them money. A trainee working 20hrs a week for a year, with the government grant, costs KRONOS about $10 an hour. They are getting highly skilled migrants to do the job, for what amounts to $10/hr out of KRONOSs pockets. Collectors who have completed the traineeship cost them $20/hr. Still poverty line wages, but twice the price. No wonder they don’t care about high staff turnover, they probably encourage it. Migrants and disabled people are an absolute trump card. With disability subsidies and migrant worker incentives, KRONOS probably pays nothing for a years’ worth of work form desperate migrants and disabled people who just want to work.

A clear example of patients willing to blame the collector, is when you ask them to apply pressure to the site where you have just removed the needle. Most people just fold their arm back or let go straight away, causing a bruise to form. Then low and behold, who could have foreseen it, they bruise.

‘Look, you bruised me’.

‘Did you push down firmly on the site like I asked you too?’

‘Yes’.

‘Well clearly you didn’t. I saw you let go about two seconds after I removed the needle. Your failure to apply pressure, like you were told to do, caused the bruise, not me’.

I guess now that I reflect back, the real joke is really on KRONOS. I entered this company looking for a new beginning, an entrance into the health field. I was looking for a well-respected job that takes initiative, drive and perseverance. A job that required and rewarded knowledge. Not only did they wear down my resolve they completely lost my respect. I wanted to go places in that company, to help them build a better Beaches image. if they had respected me, my loyalty would have been beyond belief.

We all have a staff number at KRONOS, mine was D92W27. I honestly now believe that this is how they see us. A barcode, a social security number, just another item stacked on a shelf or a list in the computer that can be replaced and deleted at any time. Our names aren't important, neither is the work we do. Until we make a mistake, then worker D92W27 becomes an irritation that needs to be dealt with. All of this makes me sound cynical, but I actually really do enjoy my job. No matter the stupid politics, the lack of support from the company, I believe in what I do. I enjoy interacting with the patients, hearing their stories, learning about their lives, and playing a role in making them better.

Now, I look at my days at KRONOS with acceptance and simplicity. I was repeatedly reprimanded for the simplest of errors, punished unfairly and hung out to dry. But life isn’t always fair, and the only way I can be happy, is to choose to be happy. Once, I was responsible for the busiest Dom run on The Beaches. I drove from Mona Vale to Dee Why, to Belrose and everywhere in between. I saw between 15 to 35 patients a day, usually with no breaks, in overheated nursing homes, that caused me to sweat beyond belief. Then I worked in collection rooms. During the winter it was quiet after 10am. 2 and half hours of work, then 6 hours of sitting around gossiping, shopping, doing crosswords, and reading trashy magazines. If KRONOS wanted to waste my skills, that was their problem. I now had a great opportunity to sort out my life while being paid to sit around doing nothing. I could go shopping, pay my bills, catch up on my reading, watch Netflix, organise social events, write my biography and plan my future. They were trying to punish me, but with the right attitude I could turn their punishment into a gift. Now instead of working my arse off, I could work on myself while still being paid.

As in all areas of life, the key is authenticity. Knowing what matters to you, improving yourself, and most of all coming from a place of truth and love. The most successful influencers are the positive ones. I spend my days being paid to get my shit together. I am organising my life, making plans, and working on being the brilliant shining star I know I can be. Thank-you KRONOS, for giving me the opportunity to craft my future on your dime, because you attempted to punish me, but underestimated my ability to make the best of things. You did your best to bring me down, but unwittingly gave me the opportunity to build myself up.