Red tape pressures disease monitoring

Two veterinarians at opposite ends of the State have blown the whistle on the transport shemozzle and cost blowout that is putting animals, Queensland's multi-billion farm industries and people, potentially at risk.

The concerns have mounted since the State Government closed two critical regional testing facilities in Toowoomba and Townsville last month, in favour of a centralised, mega-testing laboratory in Brisbane at Coopers Plains.

The move now means veterinarians and their customers in regional and rural Queensland, such as livestock producers and pet owners, are being slugged cost increases upwards of 80 to 100 per cent to have pathology samples trucked to Brisbane.

Award-winning Dulacca beef producer Lee McNicholl, who was a practising veterinarian during the height of the Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign (BTEC) in the 1970s and 80s, is still reeling from massive cost increases in forwarding samples to the Coopers Plains facility.

Mr McNicholl used to send his samples to the government's testing lab at Toowoomba. Mr McNicholl said that when the Toowoomba lab was operating, it would cost him $17.60 to send samples overnight from Miles on a Greyhound bus service.

Last week he sent the same quantity of samples (enough to fill a small 'six-pack' foam esky) to Coopers Plains overnight from Miles on Toll Transport and received a bill for $159.50.

Since then he has done his homework and conveyed a litany of scenarios to Queensland Country Life that he says will make producers and veterinarians think twice about submitting samples to Coopers Plains.

"What I've found is an absolute bloody outrage," he said.

Tully vet Dr Graham Lauridsen is also dismayed by the cost increases and the unsuitable transport arrangements that vets now have to rely on, which are causing costly and potentially deadly delays, especially when it comes to submitting samples from animals suspected of harbouring the nearly-always fatal Hendra virus.

"Prior to the Townsville lab closing if we had to send anything to Biosecurity Queensland we would send them by Greyhound bus. As we are on the Bruce Highway between Cairns and Townsville there is a bus going past about every six hours," he said.

"The samples would arrive in Townsville within three hours. We would notify the lab either via their direct line or by the mobile phone number of the duty pathologist - he even gave us his personal mobile number for weekend cases.

"In the case of cattle samples the testing would then get under way either that day or at the latest the next day. In the case of Hendra samples the Townsville lab were able to get them onto air freight at Townsville airport so that they would arrive at the Brisbane lab later that same day."

As of March we were told to 'just send them to Coopers Plains'. Well I can telly you, what a crazy amount of difficulty we have had in doing that."

Dr Lauridsen said Biosecurity Queensland staff advised his practice that Toll would pick up the samples and deliver to Coopers Plains.

The only problem is, he told QCL, Toll has one pick up per day in Tully at 2pm and there is no weekend service.

"Currently if we see a horse with Hendra on a Friday afternoon, as happened last week, the sample has to sit at our clinic until Monday afternoon when it gets picked up," he said.

"If everything goes well we will then receive the result we are waiting on by Wednesday, which is a five day wait.

"However it gets worse. Having to use Toll for the first time two weeks ago we found that we were not allowed to send 'biological samples' without a customer number. We can't even pay by credit card to get the sample picked up, they just will not do it.

"During the first suspect Hendra case I had two weeks ago we had to contact Biosecurity Queensland to let us use their customer number as we didn't have one. Once we knew this we approached Toll to get a customer account.

"Two weeks later and we still had not been notified of an account number and surprise, surprise we get another suspect Hendra death. This time because we still did not have a customer number with Toll so we managed to sweet talk another veterinary clinic in the distirct into letting us use their number so that Toll would pick up the sample.

"Having organised Toll to pick up the sample I then rang Biosecurity Queensland at Coopers Plains to let them know the sample was on its way. I was told that nobody was planning to be in the lab on the weekend and that it would be unlikely that anybody would be there to receive the sample and it may not be any good if it sits out on the loading dock all weekend.

"I explained to them the severity of the horse's signs and my concerns that it may be Hendra and they eventually got back to me and asked me what time Toll would be dropping off the sample?

"How the f... would I know was the answer I wanted to give, but I politely said I was not sure and I didn't really know how to find out. If you try to ring Toll after hours from North Queensland you receive a recorded message to say their opening hours are 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday."

Dr Lauridsen said vets in rural Queensland were in a huge predicament.

"I have expressed all of this on the phone to the Queensland chief vet's office and the Minister for Agriculture's office in the last two weeks. Staff in both offices thanked me for my information and call and said they would look into the matter and get back to me. I still haven't heard from them."

Lee McNicholl, who was one of the vets on the frontline helping in the battle to rid the State of cattle TB and Brucellosis some three decades ago, said he could not understand why the State Government had given livestock producers and private pet owners a system where it costs more to process tests and it takes longer to receive results.

"I'm not sure who this benefits, but from what I can see it sure isn't the producer or vets or anyone else who owns an animal in rural Queensland," he said.

"This isn't a good outcome for livestock producers already struggling with high costs and it certainly isn't a good outcome for effective disease surveillance across Queensland."

His fact-finding mission has revealed similar glaring problems as the scenario offered by Dr Lauridsen.

"I've looked into the daily service from Mt Isa to Brisbane via Charleville and all points in between, which arrives at 9.30am each day in Brisbane if road works on the Warrego Highway allow," he said.

"Brisbane delivery couriers collect from the Greyhound depot at 9am and 1pm. Any samples arriving via Greyhound from the west will not be picked up by couriers until 1pm and Greyhound staff have told me they cannot guarantee that samples picked up at that time will be delivered to the Coopers Plains lab on the same day.

"In fact it could be midday, the next day or later. In that case the samples arrive at the lab at least 48 hours after despatch, maybe more. This could seriously degrade samples if low temperatures are not maintained in transit."

Mr McNicholl said samples leaving from the State's north west from a centre like Winton would see delays in testing further prolonged.

"There the bus departs at 3.30pm on Monday and picks up at all towns en route to Brisbane, arriving in the city at 9.30am the following day," he said.

"Vets along that bus route despatch samples collected early Monday for diagnostic tests. These samples will not arrive at the Coopers Plains lab until Wednesday morning and the lab may not be able to start their testing procedures until Thursday depending on the tests required.

"So let's assume I collected samples anywhere between Winton and Toowoomba on Monday and made the bus at 3.20pm Winton and despatched them to Coopers Plains lab.

"The earliest result I would get would be Thursday and more likely Friday. This timeline would not have allowed the BTEC scheme to operate successfully which had a 72 hour test-read interval."

Mr McNicholl said when he used the Greyhound service to Toowoomba, the bus would arrive at 7am daily and DPI staff from the lab would "cheerfully" pick up samples en route to work at the Torr St facility.

"Results could be available Tuesday afternoon depending on the tests required. So we have gone from a 36 hour result to a 96 plus hour result at much increased freight costs to submit samples. There's only one word for it - outrageous," he said.

Australian Veterinary Association Queensland executive officer Laurie Dowling said her organisation had real concerns over the cost hikes, one of the negative impacts they had repeatedly raised when opposing the government's Toowoomba and Townsville lab closures on the grounds disease surveillance would be compromised.

"The cost to get samples from regional areas to Brisbane will no doubt deter people from sending them and there is a real fear that our disease surveillance will rapidly decrease, especially in North Queensland which is close to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea where you have FMD, Rabies and Screw-worm Fly," Ms Dowling said.

"It's a very big ask to expect individual producers to bear these costs for the good of protecting Queensland. We need to be looking at some form of subsidy to ensure these costs are manageable for producers."

Chief biosecurity officer Jim Thompson said Biosecurity Queensland was aware of the concerns raised about the transportation of samples to Brisbane and the need for cost effective freight arrangements.

He said the Veterinary Laboratory Planning Steering Committee, which is made up of representatives from Government, veterinary peak bodies and laboratory experts, was considering the transport arrangements for specimens to the Coopers Plains laboratory.

"These are yet to be finalised as it is highly complex when a system is being developed for various types of samples from across Queensland. The steering committee proposes to have these arrangements prepared in the next few weeks," he said.

He said Biosecurity Queensland had also has been holding discussions with transport providers including Toll, other courier providers, bus companies and Australia Post, to implement arrangements that minimise the sample transport costs for sample submitters.