Health minister should have spoken out: cancer patients

A former Newfoundland and Labrador health minister's decision to stay mum on flawed cancer tests is not sitting well with two patients who got the wrong results.

John Ottenheimer told the Cameron inquiry on Monday that he wanted the public to be informed of problems with hormone receptor testing in July 2005, but deferred to medical experts who said disclosure might cause patient panic.

The issue did not become public for another three months, and even then only because of a newspaper report.

Judy Janes, a Port au Port Peninsula resident whose test results wrongly showed her ineligible for treatment with Tamoxifen to keep her breast cancer from returning, said cancer patients want someone to be accountable for what went wrong at Eastern Health.

"Honestly, I think it's just another body passing the buck again," said Janes, 58, whose cancer has since spread to her lungs, legs and spine.

"I don't know if we're ever going to get an honest answer out of any of them. The rest of them are just pointing fingers at everybody," said Janes, whose cancer did in fact return.

Can't accept explanation, patient says

Meta Small, who sat in the hearing room on Monday as Ottenheimer testified, did not agree with the explanation that medical staff would not have been able to deal with the reaction of patients affected.

She recounted how she eventually learned of the error.

"One day I was having tests, and one of the technicians had said, 'My mom just had to be retested.' I said, 'Retested for what?' and he says, 'Well, faulty tests,'" said Small, who later learned she had been given erroneous results.

Justice Margaret Cameron is studying how a pathology lab in St. John's produced hundreds of inaccurate results between 1997 and 2005.

Hormone receptor tests are used to help guide the best course of treatment for breast cancer patients, and in particular whether a patient can benefit from antihormonal therapy like Tamoxifen.

Ottenheimer testified that his staff sent a letter to the office of Premier Danny Williams as soon as he was informed of the faulty tests, in July 2005.

'Buck stops with him also'

Janes wants to know more about the premier's role.

"Poor Premier Williams — I guess the buck stops with him also. He's got to make the decision to own up to this and say, 'Yes, it's my government, we're responsible,'" Janes said.

When asked in the legislature last year when he first became aware of the hormone receptor testing issue, he replied he received two briefings in October 2005.

Williams is out of the country on vacation, and is not available for comment, his office said.

New Democratic Party Leader Lorraine Michael said Ottenheimer could have set up a system that would have informed the public, yet also dealt with physicians' concerns.

She said she also wonders why Ottenheimer did not speak to the premier personally that July, if he was so worried about the issue.
 
"I just see that he didn't take the leadership that he should have taken as minister," Michael said.

"I wonder why he didn't make personal contact with the premier."

Never asked, Ottenheimer says

Meanwhile, Ottenheimer said that in the months following that first briefing in 2005, he had been expecting to be questioned by either the media or opposition politicians about the lab's problems.

"I went to the house [of assembly] each day fully briefed, in a position to respond to questions, [and] participate in debate if necessary," Ottenheimer said.

"And on not one occasion — not one occasion — was I questioned by the opposition on the very serious issue of [hormone receptor] testing."

Ottenheimer said it would have been inappropriate for him to have raised the issue unprompted, in part because Eastern Health operates at arm's length from the government.

"It is not the norm for a minister to stand, when it is only indirectly relating to the department, to simply stand and make a statement," he testified.

The St. John's Independent, a weekly newspaper, published the first media account on the issue on Oct. 2, 2005.

Ryan Cleary, the editor of the Independent, told CBC News on Tuesday that his newspaper contacted Ottenheimer's office before the article was published, but was referred to Eastern Health.