Memorial planned for breast cancer testing scandal

Eastern Health is deciding how it will honour hundreds of breast cancer patients and their families affected by the hormone receptor testing scandal.

The health authority is willing to spend $100,000 on a memorial to be located at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s.

It was one of the conditions attached to the $17.5-million settlement of a class action lawsuit against Eastern Health.

The memorial will consist of a sculpture or artwork located inside the cancer centre or the nearby garden.

But reaction is mixed among those affected by the scandal.

Cancer patient Patricia Sweeney says there are better ways to spend the cash.

"Why not put it into research, send some nurses out to the high schools, educate young women — maybe we could use it for equipment, that's why we were all misdiagnosed in the beginning, faulty equipment," Sweeney said.

But another breast cancer patient, Lorraine Hudson, believes the price is right for a permanent memorial — to make sure people never forget, and hopefully never repeat, that tragedy.

"When people say that money could be better spent, we all know that, but we should be the ones to decide in this situation if this memorial goes up or not, because we are the ones who have suffered," Hudson said.

Eastern Health is accepting proposals for the monument until March 1.