Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto has taken over all hormone receptor testing from one of Newfoundland's largest hospitals, a Toronto pathologist confirmed Thursday.

Eastern Health, the health authority at the centre of the Cameron inquiry into faulty hormone receptor testing, had been sending tests to the hospital since 2007, because of huge backlogs.

Thursday at the inquiry, Brendan Mullen, a pathologist at Mount Sinai, said his workload from Eastern Health has increased since March, 2008.

Mullen told inquiry lawyer Bern Coffey that now he is doing all the hormone receptor testing that would normally be done at St. Clare's Mercy Hospital in St. John's.

"I take it within the past week or so you indicated you understood Mount Sinai was approached to take on St. Clare's cases — at least for a period of time now..." Coffey asked Mullen at the inquiry.

"Yes. On Monday, I signed out 26 of them," Mullen said.

Eastern Health had been relying on Mount Sinai for sporadic quality monitoring since 2007. Now, the health authority is believed to be relying on Mount Sinai to handle some of the backlog caused by a shortage of pathologists.

The resignation of two pathologists at the health authority was announced Wednesday, only weeks after the Newfoundland and Labrador government approved a whopping pay hike for the specialists designed to keep doctors in the province.

If new recruits are not found by September, Eastern Health will be short six of 16 positions in adult surgical pathology. The vacancies include a pathologist on stress leave.