Proposed settlement of $2.4 million in chemo-drug lawsuit
Court still has to approve payment by drug supplier, purchaser and four hospitals
A class-action lawsuit representing more than 1,000 cancer patients in Ontario and New Brunswick who were given diluted chemotherapy drugs has reached a proposed settlement.
Mississauga-based drug supplier Marchese Hospital Solutions and bulk purchaser Medbuy Corporation, along with four hospitals in Ontario and one in New Brunswick, will collectively pay $2,375,000 to settle a 2013 lawsuit stemming from the sale and administration of a premixed liquid chemotherapy medication that contained too much saline solution, according to a notice for a court hearing to approve the settlement.
Of that sum, $1,800,000 will be equally divided among the 1,202 patients, or their estates, who were given the watered-down drugs between 2012 and 2013. Another $100,000 will go to Ontario and New Brunswick provincial health insurers and the remaining $475,000 toward administration and legal fees. As well, Marchese and MedBuy have agreed to provide the Ontario Court with affidavits “attesting to the steps they have taken to ensure the issues and concerns giving rise to the Dosing Incident have been satisfactorily addressed.”
In meeting these terms, the hospitals, Marchese and MedBuy “do not admit any wrongdoing or liability in connection with the Class Action,” the proposed settlement reads.
The class action was filed days after Cancer Care Ontario revealed in April 2013 that Windsor Regional Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, Lakeridge Health, Peterborough Regional Health Centre and Saint John Regional Hospital had received the watered-down medication. The lawsuit originally sought $25 million in damages.
The scandal sparked outrage from patients and their families, and prompted the province to introduce regulations on drug procurement. Those new rules include a requirement that hospitals only buy drugs from licensed providers (Marchese was operating without provincial or federal oversight) and also grant the Ontario College of Pharmacists the
“What this settlement represents is an acknowledgement of the added anxiety and stress that that letter, letting them know about this dilution error, would have put those cancer patients through.” SABRINA LOMBARDI LAWYER WITH MCKENZIE LAKE LAWYERS
power to inspect any facility where a pharmacist is employed, regardless of whether the facility is a licensed pharmacy.
However, a subsequent inquiry and report by Jake Thiessen, founding director of University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy, found “that there appears to be little probability that the dilution impacted cancer prognosis at all,” explained Sabrina Lombardi, a lawyer with McKenzie Lake Lawyers. The London, Ont., based law firm is one of two firms that launched the class action on behalf of the affected patients.
The inquiry also found that the mistakes made in the health-care chain did not amount to negligence.
“What this settlement represents is an acknowledgement of the added anxiety and stress that that letter, letting them know about this dilution error, would have put those cancer patients through,” Lombardi told the Star Thursday.
“They were dealing with enough in having to undergo cancer treatment, so that’s the context that this settlement has grown from.”
Patients who want to object to the settlement or opt out of it have until Dec. 7 to do so. Lombardi said she wasn’t aware of any patients who have opted out yet.
The settlement will go through an approval hearing at a Windsor courthouse on Jan. 10, 2017.