N.B. families in shock as health authority reviews 15,000 pathology reports

Many people in Miramichi have been dismayed by news the regional health authority in northeastern New Brunswick will have to review 15,000 pathology reports after discovering several misdiagnoses of cancer.

The Miramichi Regional Health Authority announced on Monday that 15,000 biopsies spanning a 12-year period will be audited after an independent review of 227 cases from 2004-05 found that 18 per cent of the cases had incomplete results and three per cent were misdiagnosed.

A pathologist is a physician who specializes in diagnosing diseases by examining tissue, blood and body fluids in a laboratory.

Almost all of the patients involved had the tests done at the Miramichi Regional Hospital between 1995 and 2007.

Dr. Rajgopal Menon, 73, was working as a pathologist at the Miramichi Regional Health Authority at the time of the diagnoses.

Menon was suspended in February 2007 after complaints of incomplete misdiagnoses and delayed lab results. He is currently suing the regional health authority regarding his dismissal.

The re-examination will also include about 100 cases the former pathologist, who allegedly conducted the flawed tests, worked for a brief period for Regional Health Authority 4 in Edmundston in 2002.

Roger and Romuald Vautour told CBC News they believe their father would still be alive, if his illness had been detected sooner.

Their father, David Vautour, was in and out of the Miramichi Regional Hospital since 2005. But his sons say he never got the help he needed.

"Every time he would go to the emergency they were doing tests and they would say, 'No, it's just your nerves. Go back home Mr. Vautour.'"

'There is nothing we can do'

Convinced the problem was more than just nerves, the family eventually took him to the hospital in Tracadie-Sheila where the doctors diagnosed pancreatic cancer.

"He said 'I'm really sorry Mr. Vautour, your dad is full of cancer and there is nothing we can do for him.'"

A week later David Vautour died on Feb. 19, 2007.

Miramichi family physician Dr. Jeff Hans has been given an eight-page list by the health authority of patients whose files may need to be reviewed.

"It's very upsetting, because it certainly impacts on many of my patients and so it leaves me worried if there were some misdiagnoses on my patients," Hans said.

Cancer survivor Terry Whalen Sr., who also runs the Miramichi prostate cancer support group, said he hopes this incident will make people take health matters into their own hands.

"This sort of thing arouses interest, makes people more conscious of their health and more conscious of the accountability part of it, more conscious of making sure it doesn't happen again," Whalen said.

But Whalen said the 75 members of the support group are still concerned about their health too.

"You go to the doctor, the hospital or health people for treatment, and you assume you're in good hands," Whalen said. "So when you hear this, it's startling."

Whalen said based on annual blood tests, he can now only assume he is in good health.