St. John's lab review to take up to 6 months

Newfoundland and Labrador's health minister, Jerome Kennedy, said Wednesday it could take four to six months to review what happened to cause more testing errors at a lab operated by Eastern Health.

Kennedy said he is looking for answers, but won't jump to conclusions.

"There's an investigation ongoing. We will quickly find what happened," he said during a media briefing in St. John's.

Eastern Health ordered the external review after discovering a problem involving one of the testing machines at its biochemistry lab at the Health Sciences Centre.

As a result, 235 people who take the immunosuppressive drug Cyclosporine are expected to be retested.

The anti-rejection drug is given to people who have undergone an organ transplant or have certain diseases. The test helps decide the Cyclosporine dosage patients need. Health officials said the machine wasn't set up properly and was providing low readings, which could cause a physician to increase the dosage of Cyclosporine. Too much of the drug may result in kidney damage.

'I want to express my disappointment ... concern that this has happened again.—Jerome Kennedy

Kennedy said the latest lab mistakes at Eastern Health - hundreds of breast cancer mistakes in the pathology lab from 1997 to 2005 led to a judicial inquiry - are a concern.

"I want to express disappointment over what's happened ... and obviously express my concern that this has happened again," he said.

One of the big criticisms against Eastern Health after the breast cancer mistakes happened was  over its decision to keep quiet on the extent of the problem, even after worried patients raised concerns publicly.

Kennedy said this time Eastern Health reacted fast by informing the public, and he credits president Vickie Kaminski for her strong leadership.

"A problem is identified. She comes out in public acknowledges responsibility, accepts responsibility and apologizes. Immediately a plan is put in place to notify patients and physicians. Immediately a toll-free number is set up," he said.

Kaminski said the health authority had an obligation to respond quickly.

"We have the responsibility, I believe, to tell the public when we have an issue. This is an issue," she said. "This is a significant issue for us, and it's a significant issue for 235 patients that need to be retested. Most of them will have no impact. But we still need to be able to say, we've done what we need to do around it," she said.

Eastern Health has halted the tests at its St. John's biochemistry and is sending samples to Halifax for testing.