Local medical technologists are raising concerns about a looming shortage in the industry.
In the next five to eight years, 45% of Ontario's medical laboratory technologists are eligible to retire.
Officials with the Ontario Society of Medical Technologists are raising the issue and calling for more resources to increase the number of people trained.
Windsor Regional Hospital has the largest single medical lab operation in the region and Director John Booth says it will have an impact locally.
Medical lab technologist Jessica Fortier at Windsor Regional Hospital says 80-85% of all diagnosis depend on their work.
"When people think of their healthcare, they see the doctors or nurses or frontline staff they interact with," she says. "But we actually play a very vital role. We're also the very first people who see something as simple as a high cholesterol, diabetes or leukemia patients"
Pathologist's Assistant Iain Macri, says the work in the lab is a key step in treatment.
"They're looking for any complex disease process that's going on so looking at the cellular level," says Macri. "Determining what pattern they're seeing and how that pattern relates to a current disease. And they're going to be diagnosing that disease, that translates to everything the patient receives, treatment the patient receives after that"
Tania Toffner with the Ontario Society of Medical Technologists says the health ministry needs to make sure more technologists are being trained.
St. Clair College has a medical lab technology program, but it is only able to graduate an average of 19 people per year.
Booth says without more graduate entering their workplace the staffing levels will become a challenge.