St John of God Pathology’s 19 laboratories and more than 180 collection centres in Victoria and Western Australia will transfer to Clinical Labs on Monday, October 10.

Collection centres in Ballarat include Medicaid in Raglan Street, UFS Medical in Doveton Street North, Mt Clear Medical Centre and designated SJOG Pathology sites in Drummond Street North and Howitt Street, Wendouree.

There is also a laboratory in Ballarat at St John of God Hospital, with a number of scientists and technicians made redundant from the laboratory last October due to an organisational restructure aimed at reducing infrastructure and service duplication.

While St John of God said there were up to 10 staff involved, an anonymous employee claimed the number could actually have been 20.

However, St John of God Health Care group chief executive officer Dr Michael Stanford said there would be no service disruption for patients, referring doctors and hospitals or staff from this sale.

He said the collection centres and laboratories would continue to operate under the St John of God Pathology brand for 12 months while they were fully integrated and rebranded.

“Clinical Labs is currently the third largest pathology service provider in Australia and the acquisition of our services provides them with a presence in Westrn Australia and helps them achieve the scale required to grow in a challenging industry and provide a credible large third service in Australia, which is critical for competition and consumers,” Mr Stanford said.

“Partnering with a high quality pathology provider will allow us to focus on our core strength, providing hospital services.”

As part of the sale, St John of God Health Care will gain a minority shareholding in Clinical Labs and Mr Stanford will take a position on its board.

St John of God Pathology performs more than 2.1 pathology episodes per year and is Australia’s fourth largest pathology provider, providing services to more than 50 hospitals and 24,000 GPs and specialists.

Clinical Labs operates 50 laboratories around Australia and has 560 collection centres in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory.