‘I didn’t need to have this scar’
Halifax woman undergoes mastectomy after her test results were mixed up
Sharon Fisher breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the words, “You don’t have cancer.”
The 67-year-old Halifax woman had undergone a mastectomy of her right breast, and was sitting in her surgeon’s office in May to hear the results of the surgery.
But Fisher’s relief quickly turned to agony when she learned she had never been sick in the first place.
“The good news is you don’t have cancer. The bad news is you lost a breast for no reason,” the surgeon told her. Fisher is one of four patients affected when two pairs of test results were switched at a Halifax hospital. While she mistakenly had her breast removed, another woman underwent an unnecessary biopsy. Meanwhile, two breast cancer patients did not immediately receive the procedures they needed.
Nova Scotia’s Capital Health District Health Authority admitted to the mistakes last week. Fisher has hired lawyer Ray Wagner and plans to take legal action against the health authority.
“It’s something that I’ll live with for the rest of my life and I’m always reminded of it,” she said. “When I get up in the morning and shower, or change to go to bed at night, I think, ‘I didn’t need to have this scar.’ ”
The retired speech pathologist had been seeing her doctor for routine screening. In February, she was told her biopsy results showed she had breast cancer. “I was stunned. I wasn’t expecting that,” Fisher said.
She underwent the operation March 28 and suffered an infection during recovery. Fisher struggled to adjust to losing a breast, but felt hopeful for the first time, believing the cancer was gone.
So when her surgeon told her in early May that her test results had been switched at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre laboratory, Fisher was in shock.
“I remember saying, ‘What about the other lady? What’s going to happen to her? I’m all right, but there’s somebody out there who’s not.’ ”
The hospital is now introducing a barcode system for breast tissue testing, which gives Fisher some small peace of mind. With files from Rachel Mendleson