Newfoundland Injury Law Blog

Eastern Health will never learn to put patients' needs first! How dare they do it again? And then try to excuse what they did!
I just finished reading the comments left by other women and the anguish continues. I will be so happy when the class action suit is settled so we can go on with our lives as best we can. We have to live with the torment and questions about our treatment for the rest of our lives. Unless you are directly involved with this, it is difficult to fully comprehend what it means to us, the victims.
I was diagnosed in 2002, had the biopsy, was told I didn't have breast cancer to go home and enjoy Christmas with my family. On January 3rd I was called into the surgeon's office and was told the pathology report was back from Eastern Health and that I did have breast cancer! I could go on about what happened but bottomline is that we, the victims, live with a cloud over our heads everyday because of the ER/PR fiasco. We put our trust in the healthcare system to help us, to be honest with us, and to do the best they can for us....so come on, Eastern Health, learn your lessons! Be forthright with your patients! We deserve the truth and we deserve support when we need it!

To respond to Elma and Louise's comments, I too would like to think my diagnosis of cancer was incorrect along with the er/pr tests but I don't feel for one minute that is the case. I went to Cleveland for my radiation. My tumor samples went before me and they tested them there. One woman who came there from Ontario was told her diagnosis was wrong and they sent her home. I have no doubt I had cancer even though I wasn't the least bit sick. I wish it was wrong too but that is not the case. The cancer testing and the er/pr testing are not the same. So, don't hold out false hope - just take charge of your health and live for the present! Worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.

As a response to Elma's message, I too feel the same. When I found a lump in my breast back in August 2002, I was not sick, I didn’t feel that anything was wrong, I had no pain, nothing. After an ultra sound, mamogram and biopsy, all these test results came back as negative, that I did not have breast cancer, but it was my choice to have the lump removed. It was not necessary because my results were all negative. My decision was to have the lump removed because it should not be in your breast in the first place and when it was removed, they told me that, yes, I have breast cancer. I had to go through devastating surgeries, a gruelling 2 chemotherapy treatments a month for 6 months and 25 days of draining radiation. I was 3 whole years without taking Tomoxifen and since this blunder/fiasco with Eastern Health, I have started taking Tomoxifen and I am now 6 and half years cancer free.

Since the fiasco with Eastern Health in 2005, I have said this to my husband and family on a number of occasions: “I wonder did I even have breast cancer?”. This cancer diagnoses never leaves you, it is stuck in your head 24/7. Every time, when you are having an off day, for example: headache, aches and pains, you wonder if you are ok. It is so very hard emotionally, but you have to continue with your life and try to make the best of it.
For a while, when I would go to my doctor’s appointments, I would ask my cancer doctor if I even had cancer. He has said that “yes, you did have breast cancer”.

I don’t know about other patients, but I never feel confident in my medical results anymore. They tell me that everything is ok but I always doubt them now. With so many horrendous mistakes being made at Eastern Health, I just don’t trust them anymore and never will trust them again.

How would we go about getting our results retested again by a third party? How do we know if the breast tissue that they would be retesting is ok? I thought that some breast cancer tissue samples were left out on the counter over night and on a weekend. How would we know that our breast cancer samples are ok for another retesting?

All this makes me think that we might be misdiagnosed in the first place. what about retesting our tissues and reexamining our slides by another party to confirm that the case was a canser after all. I heard about a lady who was diagnonsed by two cancers from different types at the same time even though she didn't experience any symptoms at all. her family was surprised to hear that, she survived and went through all the cancer treatments then she just knew that her H.R. test was wrong. what if the whole situation was wrong, how can we make sure of our diagnoses. what should we do to make sure that yes that was a cancer. It's very painful to suffer emotinaly and think of its return every time you feel a lump or have a headech. We have the right , all of us to have our tissues and slides rechecked by a trusted party. WE can not trust the estern health any more to confirm to us that their pathologists provided us with the right diagnoses.

This is my first post. I lost my mother to breast cancer that spread in 2004 when I was 18. I have decided to have her tests looked at to see if there were any errors. Does anybody know how long this process takes? I have so many questions and NO answers.

I am not the least bit surprised that nothing has changed re Eastern Health's procedures. The only mistakes we hear about are those that cannot be covered up. And as I said previously on this blog, nothing has changed. Confusion reigns supreme, and it is still very difficult to get conclusive test results. I am also not surprised that Eastern Health released the information in such a manner, so as not to be picked up by the public. This indicates exactly what is wrong with Eastern Health in trying to avoid full transparency. Those of us involved in this debacle will always wonder how many mistakes were made that we have not been informed of, or when the other shoe will drop and we will get a phone call. As indicated earlier we cannot trust this system. We must take charge of our own lives and treatment plans, and try to survive.

Eastern Health should be held accountable and forced to pay big to prevent this from happening again in the future. The entire system should be revamped.

On a more positive note, not all doctors should be painted with the same stigma. My surgeons were excellent doctors who were also victims of the incorrect lab results that they received, and should not be blamed for the errors made in the labs, nor the non-caring attitude of certain oncologists within the system. My surgeon cared so much that he offered to follow my case when he discovered that the original oncologist assigned had no intentions of giving me hormone testing, or of following my case..

I am not the least bit surprised that nothing has changed re Eastern Health's procedures. The only mistakes we hear about are those that cannot be covered up. And as I said previously on this blog, nothing has changed. Confusion reigns supreme, and it is still very difficult to get conclusive test results. I am also not surprised that Eastern Health released the information in such a manner, so as not to be picked up by the public. This indicates exactly what is wrong with Eastern Health in trying to avoid full transparency. Those of us involved in this debacle will always wonder how many mistakes were made that we have not been informed of, or when the other shoe will drop and we will get a phone call. As indicated earlier we cannot trust this system. We must take charge of our own lives and treatment plans, and try to survive.

Eastern Health should be held accountable and forced to pay big to prevent this from happening again in the future. The entire system should be revamped.

On a more positive note, not all doctors should be painted with the same stigma. My surgeons were excellent doctors who were also victims of the incorrect lab results that they received, and should not be blamed for the errors made in the labs, nor the non-caring attitude of certain oncologists within the system. My surgeon cared so much that he offered to follow my case when he discovered that the original oncologist assigned had no intentions of giving me hormone testing, or of following my case..

Eastern Health's communication BLUNDER
of finding another 38 unidentified patients who need to be retested and the way Eastern Health handeled the situtation when it came to telling the patients and the public still remains the same as before the Cameron report.
It seems they have really learned nothing from Cameron report,there actions are still showing great incompetence when it comes to these serious communication matters. What is wrong with Eastern Health? Are they stupid (to put it bluntly)? or is it because they just don't care? When well they ever learn the seriousness of this matter?

Eastern Health Communication Blunder. My God! When is this going to end. In the latest press release, Mr. Crosbie added this comment, “this new communications blunder has deepened the damage to patient trust.” Well, with last Friday’s fiasco, this has just confirmed that I will NEVER, NEVER trust the Health Care System again.

After the Cameron Inquiry, I thought that Eastern Health would cross all their “T’s” and dot all their “I’s” to make sure that this nightmare would never happen again and then it happens again!. I feel that Eastern Health does not see us as priority or as number one. When the spokesperson for Eastern Health apologized to the patients and their families for this latest blunder, it meant absolutely nothing to me. This needs to stop NOW.

When the news broke last Friday around 4:30 p.m., I was totally devastated. I could not believe what I was hearing. Another 38 breast cancer patients and maybe more that need to be retested.
Every time the telephone rang last weekend, I thought that it might be Eastern Health telling me that my results need retesting again.

When I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in 2002, my results were receptor negative, then my results changed to receptor positive then changed to receptor negative then to receptor negative again. So you can understand why I thought that Eastern Health would be calling me.

Eastern Health needs to clean up their act and start treating patients as priority. We need immediate and proper disclosure to the patients. We need to have Eastern Health officials on site to answer our questions, not to disclose some information late on a Friday evening with nobody to contact at Eastern Health about this massive explosion. It is extremely upsetting and devastating. It has to stop.

Thank you.

Louise M. Sellars

my thought son this are that none of us as cancer patients and those to come after us will probably never be able to rely on the health care anymore or if we do it will take a long time to gain trust back but as you see that more and more people are being effected it looks like it will take forever to get it back. some of will always worry was my diagnose right , did i really have cancer could they have been wrong that way . right now i know myself have wondered many different things and strees everytime i need to get testing done. are my results the right ones will i get a call or just be left alone to wonder for years which is what happened to many of us. some of us never ever got calls saying what our results were or in my case they called me and told me i was being retested then left me at that. when i called and finally spoke to someone after many years of worry i was told they decided not to send mine for retesting after all but never had the courtesy to call and tell me that. so you know acually no hearing more news about this doesn`t surprise me at all and we should all probably expect more down the road.

Eastern Health should be out and a new one put in its place. Things are never going to change with the same people in place.

When will this stop???I am at a loss for words to explain how I am feeling right now. Expecting from Day 1 to be positive but to get a negative result and on retesting feeling that my result would change for sure this time and it didn't, now here I am again waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have heard so much about the poor handling of tissue samples etc, how do we know that our samples were even in good enough shape to be retested to get a correct result?? I am also confused, the patients that supposedly got treated as if they tested positive?? Does that mean that they tested negative but treated as positive or did they test positive and if so I understood only negative results were being retested. I just don't know what to expect or think. I really need clarification but more importantly I need this to be over. I really won't get any satisifation in saying "I told you so" if I get notice that mine has changed and I am not feeling confident right now that I won't. Eastern Health should be ashamed of themselves for the spin they put on this terrible news to try to make it look like they are doing their work.

I am totally in shock once again.How much more can these women and their families take. Eastern Health and all the people within this organization has to go. They are not trusting and as every day goes by they are worse. I become ill every time I hear the name Eastern Health not to mention the many peoples names...that I will never forget as long as I live.
God Bless all of the women and their families of this terrible injustice.

As a health care professional myself, I took for granted from Day 1 that all and any information I was given regarding my 2000 breast cancer diagnosis was accurate and that tests were completed by well trained professionals, in a state of the art facility ,all under the leadership and expertise of competent individuals who were in fact part of the Institution that employed me. I have not spoken out before even though this whole "chilling" experience has devastated my life. Although my results were not changed in retesting I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. From the time that the breast cancer testing debacle became public to Eastern Health's recent discovery of ~38 previously unidentified patients requiring retesting (24 apparently deceased) my life and that of my family has been a quagmire of mistrust,anxiety and fear. I wait daily for a phone call
or letter telling me that my results have now changed as there had been some mix-up in the retesting. How can I be sure of anything anymore in a system that is wrought with total incompetence. The letter of apology just didn't cut it for me Eastern Health. You are sorry that you were found out, not sorry that you could have killed me at 42 years of age.

Do we know if the families were contacted before the news was released to the press? If not, then I would say Eastern Health has not listened to the recommendations as stated in the Cameron report nor the anguished testimony of the patients. What is it going to take to get them to understand?