Its no longer recent news in Newfoundland that Eastern Health botched cancer testing. But for so many women who were affected by this, it will continue to reverberate throughout their lives. You can view the full article here from the Globe and Mail.com. What boggles me the most is how this was kept secret for so long - that keeping this secret and figuring out how to deal with it was more important than immediately coming clean for the hundreds of pateients who were given the wrong cancer test results. Their healthcare has been irreversibly jeopardized - not to mention the women who may have died during those eight years from receiving incorrect cancer testing. Certainly, the health care system needs some reworking - but my question is, would this have happened to prostate cancer patients?

- In sisterhood, Leisha 

Excerpt - Globe and Mail, March 15th, 2008 - For eight years, botched tests went undetected by Eastern Health, the province's largest health authority and only centre for cancer testing and treatment. In 2005, after retesting more than 1,000 cases, the authority discovered hundreds of patients had been given wrong test results and had their chances of beating the disease unknowingly slashed.

Last month, Newfoundland's Supreme Court ordered the release of several reports Eastern Health kept secret for two years, which offered damning analyses of the quality of work done in the lab.

"You had a feeling when you read that there were people there who didn't know what they were doing," said Minnie Hoyles, 59, who was given wrong test results when she was diagnosed with breast cancer nine years ago. The lab is responsible for all of the province's high-level cancer analyses, called immunohistochemistry tests, including the critical hormone-receptor tests done for breast cancer patients. Typically, results from the test provide a foundation for a patient's entire cancer treatment plan.

With revelations from the reports still reverberating across the province, a public inquiry into the testing scandal is set to begin Tuesday. It remains to be seen whether it will allay spreading insecurities about the quality of cancer care in Newfoundland. Some women who were given incorrect test results told The Globe and Mail they fear that speaking publicly — to the newspaper and at the inquiry — about the impact of the scandal on their lives will jeopardize their chances of getting good cancer care if they get sick, or sicker.

"After you have cancer, it's a life of dread," Ms. Hoyles said.

Gerry Rogers, a St. John's-based documentary filmmaker who is one of the women who received wrong test results, said the scandal should be a "wakeup call" for Canadians.

"When you're dealing with cancer, you need to feel totally confident. Our health-care system, since the [Paul] Martin government, was chipped and chipped and chipped away at," she said. "As Canadians, we have a right to excellent care, universal, excellent care across the country." - FULL TEXT 

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