Shouting, 'heated' meeting predated release of cancer numbers

Officials shouted at a high-level 2006 meeting about whether dead breast cancer patients might have been helped had they received different test results, a former minister testified Wednesday.

Tom Osborne, a former Newfoundland and Labrador minister of health, said he was upset when officials with the Eastern Health authority said they could not provide details about deceased cancer patients who got flawed hormone receptor tests.

During a day of revelations, Osborne also described the anger he felt when he learned that officials had failed to give him details he later knew existed, and that the public was not given information that he assumed would be disclosed.

The meeting in November 2006 was organized to plan a Dec. 11 technical briefing for journalists, when Eastern Health officials would release the results of a wide-ranging review of errors at a St. John's pathology lab.

But, Osborne said, he and other officials were not satisfied with what they were told, particularly about "the numbers of individuals who potentially would have had a benefit in a change in treatment, were they still alive."

Osborne said his executive assistant, Darrell Hynes, pressed for those numbers, but got an unsatisfactory response from Dr. Kara Laing, an Eastern Health oncologist.

"I recall [her] saying that she wasn't concerned with the dead; her concern was with the living," Osborne testified.

"Darrell Hynes at that particular point said you had better come up with a better response … when you present this in the media briefing, because that's clearly not acceptable."

'Voices were raised'

Describing the meeting as "heated," Osborne told Justice Margaret Cameron: "The whole conversation around the deceased had deteriorated. Voices were raised [and] there was a bit of shouting back and forth."

Osborne said his own voice at time was raised.

Osborne said he had assumed that Eastern Health would publicly disclose the package that had been presented to him. However, different figures were released to the public.

Osborne said he was not briefed on that — and did not notice himself, because he did not see immediate coverage, and instead relied on a synopsis prepared for him.

The theme of communications — and a failure to get the best information — coursed throughout Osborne's testimony.

He described how in a May 2007 cabinet meeting, he saw a briefing note sent that Health Department officials sent to Premier Danny Williams — but had never conveyed to him. Osborne said that memo contained much more information than what was given to him.

'The rest of the cabinet meeting was a blur'

"I was really quite angry," said Osborne, who by that time was the justice minister.

"The rest of the cabinet meeting was a blur. I was so upset, all I could focus on was this, and wondering, the thoughts going through my mind, 'Why did I not receive the briefing note?' 

"…The more I thought about it, the more upset I got. In hindsight, and upon reflection of that particular day, I should have left the cabinet room just to get a breather."

In the legislature Wednesday, Williams said he was "absolutely flabbergasted" that Osborne had not been given the same information that had been sent to him.

"What happened in the department or how it happened or why it happened, I have no knowledge," said Williams, responding to Opposition Leader Yvonne Jones, who asked if it was government policy to not inform ministers of material shared with the premier.

"But I can certainly tell you that from our perspective, we wouldn't instruct anybody in the department to circumvent the minister, and on the contrary, we've asked that the ministers be directly involved in the briefing notes that come to my office."

Osborne testified that when the November 2006 briefing concluded, he assumed that the public was soon to learn what he had been told —although, he would later learn, even that was less than what officials knew.

"The thought I would've had is that this information is soon to be released," Osborne said.

That didn't happen — at least, not in its entirety.

Indeed, the public did not become aware of the extent of problems at the Eastern Health lab until the next spring, amid media reports about documents filed with a now-certified class action lawsuit.

Among other things, the documents showed that the error rate among a large set of samples was several times higher than what had been disclosed. The government at that time announced it would organize a judicial inquiry.

In the legislature Wednesday, Williams made several comments criticizing Eastern Health's information management.

"We've seen instances where Eastern Health had omitted and deleted information from briefing notes that were being released under [access to information] requests," Williams said.

"They've actually had press conferences where all the information wasn't revealed. [But] those are actions that are beyond the control of the minister."