Lack of communication over test results not humane, N.L. woman says

Newfoundland's largest health organization should have contacted patients directly about misread breast cancer tests, patient Rosalind Jardine told the public inquiry into the botched tests.

Jardine, speaking Monday in St. John's, said the lack of communication from Eastern Health was not humane. She added that she believes doctors didn't know how to handle the size of the problem.

"I feel they have not handled it well. In fact, very poorly," said Jardine, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999.

Her initial tests ruled out treatment with the hormone therapy drug Tamoxifen, which has been shown to improve five-year survival rates.

"I would have gone on it in a heartbeat," Jardine told the inquiry. "I would have taken it in a heartbeat, because of what is could possibly give me."

In 2005, with the cancer spreading to her bones and her bowel, retesting of her tumour tissue samples at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital showed her initial test results were wrong.

Jardine said when she was first told of the misdiagnosis her oncologist apologized to her and said the mistakes were enormous.

She said she had twice considered leaving the province for a second opinion after her diagnosis, but decided against it after she spoke with her doctor and other people who had cancer.

"I knew I was in good hands," she told the inquiry.

The inquiry is examining how 383 patients received inaccurate results from hormone receptor tests, which are used to determine a course of treatment, from 1997 to 2005 and whether Eastern Health responded to them and the public in an appropriate and timely manner.

The inquiry, which started Wednesday, is led by provincial Supreme Court Justice Margaret Cameron is expected to deliver its final report in the summer of 2008.