Capital Health is expecting a shortage of laboratory technicians in the coming years and it’s getting a cash infusion from the province to replace those workers with new lab equipment in the interim.

The province is investing $3.5 million into new lab equipment, $3.3 million of which will go towards an automated track laboratory system which can do work more efficiently than a human being.

“We probably have 30 technologists who could probably hand in their notice tomorrow,” said Dr. Godfrey Heathcote during today’s announcement at the Victoria General. “And over the next three, four, five years, there are many more who could retire.”

The machinery is expected to help bridge the gap between current workers retiring and the next generation of lab technicians graduating, a program which has only just been rekindled in Nova Scotia.

Capital Health operates the largest laboratory east of Montreal processing approximately 7,000 tubes of blood from out-patient clinics, emergency rooms, doctor’s office and other hospitals.