N.L. agency did poor job informing St-Pierre women of cancer tests: group

By: Michael Tutton, THE CANADIAN PRESS HALIFAX - A patients advocacy group on the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon says a Newfoundland health agency did a poor job informing eight women on the islands about breast cancer testing mistakes. The French government pays the St. John's-based Eastern Health Authority to provide health care to residents on the windswept archipelago about 20 kilometres off the south coast of Newfoundland. Jaqueline Park, a member of a patient rights association in St-Pierre, said Eastern Health should have telephoned the women or written a letter in French to inform them about errors detected in hormone-receptor tests in 2005. Instead, the health authority sent a letter to the women's oncologist on St-Pierre-Miquelon in 2005, at around the same time other affected women - most of them in... [read full story]