More than two dozen nurses will lose their jobs at SA Pathology, and be redeployed elsewhere in the health system, under a major restructure plan for the organisation.
Documents obtained by the ABC show the plan to shake-up the service will include training lower-skilled staff to take blood and carry out sample collection services.
A total of 22 nurses will go from metropolitan sites, while eight will go from regional areas.
They will be replaced with an increase to "operational services staff".
"SA Pathology is currently the only public pathology provider in Australia that includes nurses in the provision of routine phlebotomy [blood-taking] services, with other states only using nurses in high-acuity areas for complex sample collection," the consultation document says.
The paper states SA Pathology will continue to have some nursing roles, but they will be "aligned to specific hospital sites in order to provide certainty of service for specific nursing functions".
At present, anyone taking blood at a metropolitan SA Pathology site, must have at least a Certificate III in phlebotomy, while regional sites have in-house training.
Under the proposed change, the Certificate III requirement will no longer apply, with SA Pathology creating its own training program.
In a statement to the ABC, SA Health said no nurses would be made redundant.
"Any qualified nurse not kept in their existing role under the proposed change will be offered positions within critical areas of the health system in line with the relevant training and skills of each individual," it said.
"This will help meet the demand in our LHNs [local health networks] and hospitals."
The Health Services Union said it was disappointed to see SA Pathology cutting nursing jobs.
"Patients are already experiencing significant wait times for services and leaving the remaining nursing staff with an onerous workload is an unacceptable clinical risk," it said in a statement.
SA Pathology has a history of staff cuts and privatisation proposals.
After a 2015 review of the service found inefficiencies, the former Labor government proposed almost 200 job cuts.
In 2018, the Liberal government set massive savings targets for the organisation, with plans to privatise it if it did not meet them.
It reversed that plan in April 2020, when the pandemic dramatically escalated its workload.
This latest restructure proposal is open to consultation for four weeks, with feedback closing on March 3.
