Pathologist complaints found without merit: CEO
The head of the Miramichi Regional Health Authority was surprised in August 2005 when an advisory committee found complaints against a former pathologist were found to have no merit.
Gary Foley, the current CEO at the Miramichi Regional Health Authority, told a public commission in Moncton on Tuesday that he was a vice-president at the health authority when he first heard complaints about Rajgopal Menon, including delayed lab reports and absenteeism.
The inquiry is examining a high rate of breast and prostate cancer misdiagnoses at the health authority.
Menon, now 73, worked as a pathologist at the hospital in northeastern New Brunswick from 1995 until he was suspended in February 2007.
By the time Foley was appointed as CEO in 2004, he testified, Menon had already been removed from his position as chief pathologist.
Foley said that he was concerned about Menon's work at the hospital but he focused on other issues in his new position.
There was a lot of turmoil at the hospital, Foley said. There were worries about the institution's future, infighting within the health authority and staff threatening to leave.
Foley said he focused on those issues when he became CEO.
However, the complaints about Menon's slow turnaround times, missing lab slides and attendance habits were examined by the medical advisory committee for the hospital in August 2005, Foley said.
That committee found that the complaints were without merit, Foley said, adding that he was surprised by that result.
After the committee examined the complaints, the turnaround times in the lab did appear to improve, Foley said.
Health Minister Mike Murphy called the public inquiry after an independent audit of 227 cases of breast and prostate cancer biopsies from 2004-05 found 18 per cent had incomplete results and three per cent had been misdiagnosed.
A lab in Ottawa is reviewing more than 23,700 patient cases from the eastern New Brunswick hospital dating from 1995 to 2007. The audit of the biopsies will also include about 100 carried out at the Regional Health Authority 4 in Edmundston in 2002, when Menon also worked there.
The commission will be hearing testimony for four weeks at the University of Moncton before going to Miramichi, where any of the 227 patients affected by the initial review can testify in June.
The commission will then return for a final four weeks of hearings in Moncton in September.
Menon is scheduled to testify for two and a half days beginning May 28. He has been attending the public commission but so far has declined to comment to the media.
The inquiry will not assign civil or criminal responsibility to any person or organization.
By Jan. 1, 2009, former judge Paul Creaghan is to make recommendations to the government on how to prevent an excessive level of misdiagnoses from happening again.