Mastectomy lawsuit seeks tissue evidence

A group of women in Newfoundland and Labrador who were erroneously told they had severe breast cancer, then had both breasts removed, are fighting to get the evidence they say they need to show negligent doctors — and a broken system — are to blame for their ordeal.

The women want the local health authority to send tissue samples from their breasts to an impartial pathologist for testing to find out where the system fell apart and who is to blame.

The lawyer representing three of the women in a lawsuit filed Wednesday said the test will show whether doctors overstated the severity of cancerous tumours — based on poorly conducted testing at a local laboratory — before recommending the women have their breasts removed to stop the cancer from spreading.

“Until we have that opinion, we don’t know if we have a case,” said St. John’s medical malpractice lawyer Ches Crosbie.

According to tests done as part of a provincial inquiry, none of the nine women who had double mastectomies needed the invasive surgery.

Crosbie is representing Myrtle Lewis, 63, one of the three women suing Eastern Health and her primary doctor.

Crosbie said Eastern Health, Newfoundland’s largest health authority, is refusing to send the tissue samples to Nova Scotia by courier, a practice he said is common across the country when an outside expert’s opinion is needed.

Along with having both breasts removed unnecessarily in 1999, Lewis had six cycles of chemotherapy and various X-rays, according to court documents.

They say Lewis “suffered, both mentally and physically from surgery and chemotherapy treatments, as well as from the stress and anxiety of believing, for approximately seven years, that she had invasive cancer, and the indignity of having both breasts removed.”

The allegations in the women’s statement of claim have not been tested in court.