38 more breast cancer patients in N.L. needed retesting

"The Newfoundland and Labrador health authority at the centre of a breast cancer testing scandal says it has identified more than three dozen additional patients — including 24 now dead — who should have been retested in a review of hormone receptor tests."

I dare say it's fair to believe that no one would be too surprised by this latest "New or not so New" revelation with this story. I would have believed we would have long since passed the time where debating what went wrong before and after the Cameron inquiry yields us any true understanding or better still, acceptance of what happened.

This is testimony of negligence however is at it's best.... 36 more people, 24 of which are already dead as a result of complete incompetence, and many would think ignorance and arrogance by a government and Health Care authority that failed far to many innocent and vulnerable women. Totally ridiculous, Health Care in Newfoundland obviously needs a huge overhaul, more than the extra 300 million dollars announced, to prevent this type of gross negligence from ever happening to another family again.

Ok, that said! Who pays? Who receives and who is accountable? Is, we are sorry from Eastern Health or the Government enough? After all, this latest news release is somewhat a confession isn’t it? Eastern Health is ultimately saying; people died, here and we allowed it, we killed them! Ladies and Gentlemen these women put their faith, lives and liberty in the hands of a trusted entity, an entity that ultimately failed them.

We are not talking about a mistake that would be more acceptable had it been on one person where the fallout is between patient and physician, but no, we are talking about 424 patients so far, with that number expected to increase. We are talking about wrongful death, pain and suffering! We are talking about government and Eastern Health tossing millions of dollars, that has been pre-determined in back room deals, where patients and or families are offered this quiet money, with the general hope of government and Eastern Health that this will all go away soon.

I remember reading a few stories over the years where both Canadian and U.S soldiers had come under fire by the military legal systems they were policed by, for wrongfully firing on and killing civilians in urban warfare!. We are talking about city street war in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, wars where collateral damage is inevitable. Yet, countless soldiers representing global peace will spend years in military prisons for making a mistake.

I believe it would be fair to assume, these oncologists, lab techs and biochemist all conducted there tests, completed their work without fear of an AK-47 pointed at their head or an IED planted under their chair! But yet these lab and office soldiers are able to walk away without consequence and remain worry free from any judgement from having made continuous and continued errors they made, not once, not twice, not three times ladies and gentlemen, but rather 424 and still counting times!

What divides groups and civic enforcement from one or another? Recently a local fisherman was found guilty for not having provided the necessary equipment on his vessel, equipment that could have saved lives during a sinking of his ship! Another company charged and convicted for sending sent out a piece of heavy equipment that had a breaking issue, creating an accident that took one life on Duckworth Street. The list goes on.

Here we are five years later, Eastern Health blamed faulty equipment and wrong testing practices that allowed for the errors to be made, and each and every person responsible for these mistakes escape consequence. My dilemma with this is simple, if the lab director or any number of authority figures knew the equipment was faulty, why did they allow it to be used? They would have known these errors were likely and people would possibly die?

In the case of the contractor who allowed a piece of equipment to hit the streets with bad breaks, and as a result a person was killed, suffered the charges along with the driver of the equipment for having known, but ignored the dangers of using faulty equipment. The penalty was huge for both!

I am not so much questioning the errors as earlier stated, it's old news really, and outside of tossing too few millions at the repair required, nothing has been or will be done to insure the safety of our provinces vulnerable in the future.

However, I am certainly confused at how easy we as a populous are to accept the process used to determine guilt or innocence. The legal process here in this case appears to be compromised and managed by higher authority, even beyond our Chief Justice.There is room here for charges, who will lay them?


Brudder