Not given lab results until this year, final witness tells cancer probe
A Labrador woman provided an astonishing finale to the provincial breast cancer inquiry Friday, testifying that she learned only a few months ago that her lab test results had been faulty.
Elizabeth Finlayson, 68, told Justice Margaret Cameron that even though she had a breast removed in 2000, no one contacted her until this year about the status of her hormone receptor test, which helped determine her treatment. The test was made shortly before her surgery eight years ago.
Finlayson, a resident of the Labrador mining town of Wabush, said she inquired about her breast cancer test only after she saw televised coverage of the Cameron inquiry, which concluded seven months of often-alarming testimony Friday.
"I saw on the TV about this inquiry that was going on, and I didn't think much of it at first," Finlayson said.
"Then there's people on the stand and they were talking, and I said, 'That sounds like me,'" Finlayson told the inquiry.
"So I phoned my daughter Jane and she said, 'Mom, I'm going to look into that for you,' and she did," said Finlayson, whose daughter, Jane Hopkins, sat by her side during her testimony.
Finlayson did not find out until August that her tests had been flawed in the first place.
Patient notification at core of inquiry's work
The issue of patient notification has been a recurring theme since Cameron began hearing testimony in March.
Even as the inquiry opened, the Newfoundland and Labrador government revealed that some patients had never received the results of retested samples, even though Eastern Health — the authority at the centre of the testing scandal — insisted in late 2006 that such was the case.
Finlayson's case underscores how patients have been missed, right through the very inquiry that was established to probe what went wrong.
"They didn't call me. I had to call myself to see if they received it," Finlayson told Cameron, describing how the result of the retest went to her family doctor. Two months passed between the results being sent to her physician and Finlayson learning of it.
Found out after apologies put in mail
To this day, Finlayson said, she has yet to receive an apology from Eastern Health.
The authority mailed out letters of apology this summer to hundreds of breast cancer patients and their families.
Because Finlayson's cancer has spread to other parts of her body, and because she is already getting an antihormonal treatment for the spreading cancer, Eastern Health determined that Finlayson's case does not affect overall statistics.
That decision was made even though had Finlayson received the right result in 2000, she may have been prescribed Tamoxifen.
Ches Crosbie, a St. John's lawyer who is leading a class action lawsuit that has been certified in Newfoundland Supreme Court, had strong words about that after Finlayson's testimony.
"It also illustrates the fact that the number that Eastern Health put out in the beginning, and for that matter now, about those who needed a treatment change as a result of the mistesting is far too low," Crosbie said.
Eastern Health has also come under fire for holding back on sending letters to patients in the early months of the crisis to indicate the authority was investigating the accuracy of the tests.
Just this week, St. John's lawyer Dan Boone told the inquiry he advised against sending a letter in October 2005 because he assumed patients involved with the issue would have learned about the retests through media reports.
Finlayson's appearance as the final witness was not coincidental. The inquiry opened in March with heart-rending testimony from patients and their families on how botched cancer tests affected them.
"We started with patients and now you're our last witness, and I think it was very important to come back to the whole reason why we're here," Cameron told Finlayson.
First witness 'very forgiving'
Meanwhile, the first witness to appear before Cameron — and who opened the inquiry with an angry explanation of how she was mistreated by the health care system — says she now has a different outlook on things after closely following testimony through the last seven months.
Beverly Green told Cameron in March how faulty test results robbed her of treatment options that may have helped her fight her cancer.
Green said she was struck over and over by the same thing as she watched Eastern Health and government officials testify.
"They were hiding and — I don't know, they lost it. They had no control," Green said in an interview.
"No one seems to know where they were standing or who was who, or who was in charge, or who was to do the right thing."
Even so, Green told CBC News she no longer harbours the anger that tore at her in March.
"Personally, right now, I feel very forgiving," she said after a long pause. "I'm glad everything is out in the open and things will change for the better."
Although Green's cancer has moved to her liver, she said a new chemotherapy treatment is having some success.
'I now have to go to work'
Finlayson's testimony capped what had been a remarkable week at the inquiry. On Tuesday, Premier Danny Williams, who announced the inquiry last year, apologized for any mistakes made by his and previous governments, and took "full responsibility" for what went wrong.
Williams also promised that government would follow through on Cameron's recommendations, within budgetary limits.
Cameron, who sits on the Newfoundland Supreme Court's appeals division, is expected to deliver her final report by March 1.
The most recent update of a Newfoundland and Labrador government database shows that 386 breast cancer patients received inaccurate hormone receptor tests. In March, the government revealed that 108 patients had died. It is not clear it is not clear whether earlier adoption of Tamoxifen would have prolonged or saved lives.
In all, Cameron heard from 93 witnesses — including patients, nurses, physicians, lab technicians, managers and politicians — over 129 days of testimony.
After thanking lawyers and commission staff, Cameron said, "I now have to go to work."