Computer records at dump, breast cancer inquiry learns

Some of the records connected to hundreds of inaccurate breast cancer tests are likely buried at the St. John's dump, an inquiry has been told.

As well, the Cameron inquiry has been told that the equipment used in a St. John's pathology lab for several years was sold to a refurbisher before it was shipped to the Caribbean.

Even though external reviews had ruled out equipment failure as causing wrong hormone receptor test results for hundreds of breast cancer patients, the Cameron inquiry also been told that Eastern Health had publicly said the equipment was a likely cause.

To this day, some staff believe the DAKO technology replaced four years ago was in some way responsible for errors.

Lab director Terry Gulliver told Justice Margaret Cameron that records from the computer portion of the DAKO technology were long ago discarded at the St. John's dump.

"I would say, if you check Robin Hood Bay, it's probably down there somewhere," Gulliver said.

"That's where probably most of this stuff went to."

Lab samples themselves, though, are kept for years, Gulliver said. That process allowed the authority to have hundreds of tissue samples sent away for retesting.

An expert from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto testified earlier this year that many of the samples he had been sent had been prepared incorrectly.

The Cameron inquiry has often been told that Eastern Health officials had pointed to equipment failure as the probable cause of errors, even though two external experts who examined the site in 2005 identified a myriad of other causes.

Eastern Health went to Newfoundland Supreme Court earlier this year in an unsuccessful bid to keep those reports out of the public eye.

The machines, however, were never examined, and had been sold long before Eastern Health realized that so many of its hormone receptor tests were wrong.

Gulliver said the DAKO machinery, which the authority bought for about $65,000 in the mid-1990s, was sold to a St. John's-area businessman who refurbishes medical equipment.

"He pretty well said, you know, if you're going to throw it out, could he have it?" he said.

"There was a process the health care corporation had where like you called to purchasing, and somebody could buy it for a dollar." 

Gulliver said the last he heard, the refurbished machinery had been sold to a buyer in the Bahamas or in Bermuda.

Gulliver testified that medical technology can quickly outlive its usefulness.

"Really, you would have to almost go to, I don't know, I won't say Third World countries, [but] you wouldn't find a use for them in another large clinical lab anywhere," Gulliver testified.

Gulliver, meanwhile, told the inquiry that he did not agree with an attribution from pathology director Dr. Don Cook, who had said Gulliver told him that a large percentage of the conversions in hormone receptor tests were due to technical changes.

"I don't think that can be attributed to me saying that," Gulliver testified.

"I'm just saying I think that was some of the discussion that was going on amongst the group."

Gulliver's testimony raises more questions about why Eastern Health became fixated on blaming its old equipment, despite having expert advice to the contrary and similar advice from its own staff.

Joan Dawe, the chair of the Eastern Health board, testified that as recently as early this year, she had been led to believe that faulty equipment had been to blame.