Ex-Minister Thought Story of N.L. Cancer Errors Would Emerge in 2006

By THE CANADIAN PRESS

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – A former provincial health minister says he thought a Newfoundland health board would reveal all the information it had about errors in breast-cancer testing at a news conference in December 2006.

But the scope of the mistakes Tom Osborne had been briefed on the previous month was not fully explained by the Eastern Health authority at the media briefing.

Testifying at a public inquiry today, Osborne says he expected Eastern Health to make that information public, but didn’t ask why it wasn’t.

Osborne says by the time he discovered the omission, he had left the health portfolio to become justice minister and didn’t ask officials in the government or at Eastern Health about it.

The full extent of the faulty tests didn’t emerge until May 2007 when documents relating to a class-action lawsuit showed more than 300 patients received inaccurate test results.

The inquiry is looking into why nearly 400 breast-cancer patients received the wrong results on their breast-cancer tests.