New Brunswick class action against province’s health authority
Last week, a class action lawsuit was launched against New Brunswick’s Regional Health Authority for faulty pathology work at the Miramichi Regional Hospital.
The complaint alleges that the hospital authority was negligent when it hired pathologist Dr. Rajgopal Menon in 1994 against the advice of Dr. John MacKay, its vice-president of medical services at the time.
It also claims that inadequate background checks were done and the authority ignored warnings made by Menon’s previous employer, the Saint John Hospital.
The class action represents 50 patients who were treated by Menon, between 2004 and 2005, and seeks damages on behalf of all of them.
Menon oversaw diagnostic testing of 24,000 pathology samples from 1995 to 2007.
The health authority is also charged with not reacting quickly enough in dealing with possible inaccuracies in Menon’s work.
An independent audit made late last year reflected discrepancies in 18 per cent of 227 prostate and breast cancer cases under Menon’s care in 2004 and 2005. Of these cases, six per cent were misdiagnosed.
In 41 cases, there was either misdiagnosis of the stage of cancer, or there was an incomplete protocol, or examination, while the other nine patients had undetected cancers leading to misdiagnoses, according to the claim.
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