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| Last updated at 12:03 PM on 24/03/08 |
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Rosalind Jardine appears before the inquiry into the hormone receptor testing scandal in St. John's this morning. — Photo by Gary Hebbard/The Telegram |
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Witness tells inquiry she was one of the ‘very fortunate ones’  
BY BARB SWEET
The Telegram
The first witness of the day at the inquiry into the hormone receptor testing scandal taking placed in St. John’s told the story of how inaccurate test results impacted her.
Rosalind Jardine was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999. She received a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, but her initial hormone receptor tests ruled her out for hormone therapy drug Tamoxifen.
“I was one of the very fortunate ones. I had no side effects other than tiredness,” Jardine, 60, said of her chemotherapy and radiation.
The inquiry is examining why hundreds of women received inaccurate results from hormone receptor tests — used to determine the course of treatment — from 1997 to 2005.
In 2005, Jardine was admitted to emergency and had surgery of the bowel, where the cancer had spread.
That was around the same time news of the botched hormone receptor tests was breaking, Jardine said.
She said Mount Sinai Hospital’s retesting of her tumour tissue samples showed her original hormone receptor tests were wrong.
She said oncologist Dr. Kara Laing apologized to her at the time.
“I cried, she cried,” Jardine said.
By that time the cancer was in her bones and she was placed on other drugs, because she was no longer eligible to take Tamoxifen.
“I’m doing very well,” Jardine said. “There’s no new surprises or lesions.”
Jardine said Eastern Health should have contacted patients and the patients should not have had to find out through the media of the botched tests.
“I feel they have not handled it well, in fact very poorly,” Jardine said of Eastern Health.
“Personally, they feel the size of this was so enormous they just didn’t know how they were going to handle this.
“I just come up with, sad. I’m very sad how this happened, how it’s playing out … I’ve lost trust, I second guess everything.”
The inquiry continues today. Three witnesses are scheduled to offer testimony.
Further updates today on The Telegram’s website and full coverage in Tuesday’s print edition of The Telegram.
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24/03/08
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