The lab has had intermittent mail problems since 2006 - the year the new processing center opened in Southwest Philadelphia - but Chen said that this year the problems worsened. On Oct. 8 and Nov. 21, a total of 53 specimens, which had been delayed in the mail by two to four weeks, arrived at his office.
Tissue specimens usually arrive overnight or the next day, he said. It takes 24 to 26 hours to identify a disease and issue a report about the specimen, he said.
"One specimen did not arrive for three weeks, so the doctor did another biopsy," Chen said. "The patient was anxious and upset because clinically, it looked like cancer.
"The day we received the new specimen, the old specimen arrived," he added. "And it was cancer."
Once specimens arrive in the lab, they are put through an automatic processor overnight. Pathologists then make thin tissue sections and examine them by microscope. Afterwards, the doctors write a report and fax it immediately to the surgeon, Chen explained.
In an Oct. 9 letter to the Postal Service, Chen complained about the late deliveries, and a postal official, Cindy Watts, has been working with another physician, Dr. Gordon Pringle, to solve the delivery problems at Chen's office.
Like many others, Chen thought he had an isolated mail problem.
But an Oct. 24 complaint filed by the American Postal Workers Union alleged that senior officials of the Postal Service's processing plant in Southwest Philly ordered clerks to reduce the daily mail count by undercounting hundreds of thousands of pieces.
The allegedly phony records, coupled with a yearlong ban on overtime, has resulted in a chronically understaffed plant - unable to process unsorted mail, which sits in overflowing bins for days and weeks.
The mail backlog is transferred in spurts to neighborhood post offices, where it can sit for another couple of days, say letter carriers.
