Dr. Oscar Howell told the Cameron inquiry that some Eastern Health staff are reluctant to say publicly where they work. (CBC)

A top executive at Eastern Health has told a judicial inquiry that morale among staff has plunged amid revelations over mishandled cancer testing.

Dr. Oscar Howell, who was appointed vice-president of medical services in 2006, said Eastern Health has taken more than a few knocks in media coverage, which has meant emotional scars for hard-working employees.

"I could walk through the corridor and meet people that I knew and I would chat with them, and I could see the anguish and the pain that many of them were experiencing," Howell told Justice Margaret Cameron.

Previously a physician specializing in occupational health, Howell said he met with employees "from those that sweep the floor to even at the very senior leadership level" and found similar problems.

"It had even evolved to the point where these people, if someone asked where they worked, they hated to say Eastern Health," Howell said. "And that was very sad to me, considering the volume of work that we do and the quality of the work."

Howell told the inquiry that he organized "town hall" meetings to help clear tensions between physicians and technologists over flawed hormone receptor testing, which is at the heart of the Cameron inquiry's mandate.

Told little about flawed tests

Some 383 breast cancer patients were given the wrong results for their estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor (ER-PR) tests.

But Howell told the inquiry that when he took over from Dr. Robert Williams in September 2006, he was told almost nothing about the hormone receptor issue.

"There were so many things, so many people that I was meeting with," Howell said. "ER-PR was really not even on my radar screen in that first month."

Howell said that he was preoccupied with other front-burner issues, including a critical shortage of pharmacists.

Even after he was briefed on the hormone receptor problems, and a massive retesting program that Eastern Health had launched while also overhauling its pathology lab, the authority had to deal with one crisis after another.

Eastern Health came into existence in early 2005, after the Newfoundland and Labrador government ordered a merger of seven regional boards.

One emergency after another

Howell said Eastern Health found itself moving from one emergency issue to the next.

He said a turning point came as the amalgamated authority dealt with the October 2006 report on the death of Zachary Turner, a toddler who died when his mother, Shirley Turner, a fugitive from the U.S. justice system, drowned herself and her child in 2003.

"I think it was at that time that I started to realize that the name Eastern Health was going to be in the news every single day," Howell said.

"We were truly cradle to grave. So suddenly [former chief executive officer George] Tilley ultimately had the responsibility from that baby that was being born, through the daycare, through the social services system … and then into long-term care and everywhere along that continuum [and] there were problems," he said.

"There was no way that we were not going to be in the news virtually every day, and the majority of that would likely be not happy things. And that was quite a realization to me."

Cameron, though challenged Howell on his expectations when he took the job.

"It certainly isn't news to anybody that bad news is much more interesting than good news," Cameron said.

"When you look at the role that that organization plays in life, at least on one side of the island, it seems to me you should have anticipated that," she said.

"I probably should have, commissioner," replied Howell, although he added that in the past, adverse events were limited to specific hospitals.

"I certainly was naive to the fact that suddenly, Eastern Health, as a name, as a brand, if you like, now contained all of these elements and that was the name that would be talked about."