The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamas-based medical laboratory is looking to curb the millions spent abroad annually on lab testing, its operator telling Tribune Business that returns in this sector are among the largest revenue areas for hospitals.

Bonnie Culmer, owner and operator of Bonaventure Medical Laboratory (BML), told Tribune Business her business has recently acquired state-of-the-art equipment from Gen Probe Technology to become the premier facility for STD (sexually transmitted disease) testing in the Bahamas.

The instrument, called the GenProbe Panther, received US Federal approval in May 2012 for its innovative target capture method, making it up to 100 per cent sensitive and highly specific for STD organisms, which include the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

This, Mrs Culmer said, will allow Bonaventure Medical Laboratory to provide fast, efficient and accurate service for all GenProbe urine  and swabs, and high risk HPV samples.

“From the medical tourism aspect ,anyone who goes to a private doctor to do GenProbe testing,  the lab will collect the sample and they will send it to a reference lab in the United States,”she said.

“We have set ourselves up as a reference lab, meaning we want the other labs to send samples our way that would normally go to the US. I hate to see when we send money out of the country to do a lab test that could be done here. That’s why we really pushed to get the instrument in house. They make so much money off us in the US, not just from Bahamians who want to go away for check-ups but also for lab testing.”

Mrs Culmer added: “We are the only one in the private sector that is doing it. The Princess Margaret Hospital has a much older system where they do the GenProbe testing, but that takes quite a long time.

“This system we have from GenProbe is very new. This system just got FDA approval in May and we got it in June, so a lot of labs in the US don’t even have it as yet. With this system I can literally put on a sample and walk away from the instrument. It’s a plus for the country on the whole. When you look at the hospital setting, the lab returns is one of the largest grossing areas for the hospitals.”

“We just want people to know that the option is there now to have it done here.They don’t need to go abroad to get the quality of results they are looking for,; they can do it right here.”