Gerry Rogers: 'If retesting was redone in 2003, there are a number of women who perhaps would not be sick today.' (John Gushue/ CBC)

A St. John's breast cancer survivor says she was pleased to hear Premier Danny Williams apologize for mistakes that led to hundreds of patients receiving inaccurate results from crucial lab work.

Gerry Rogers, who has spoken out frequently on behalf of patients, said she felt Williams was sincere when he assumed "full responsibility" for mistakes that his government and previous governments made, as well as for errors made at the Eastern Health regional authority.

"I think it would mean a lot to women who've been affected, and their families … He spoke to almost everybody who has been involved in this from Day 1," said Rogers, a filmmaker whose documentary on her ordeal with cancer, My Left Breast, has been screened internationally.

But Rogers said she feels the inquiry into the flawed breast-cancer testing has underscored a broader issue — the possibility that lives could have been saved if more officials had known and then responded to warnings issued five years ago about the sad state of affairs in a St. John's pathology lab.

"It's a mystery to me," Rogers said.

"I want to know how come retesting wasn't redone then. Because if retesting was redone in 2003, there are a number of women who perhaps would not be sick today because they would have Tamoxifen earlier. There may even have been a number of women who would still be with us today."

Rogers was referring to evidence centring on written warnings made in 2003 by now-retired pathologist Dr. Gershon Ejeckam, who said hormone receptor testing at the St. John's lab had persistent and erratic errors.

Warning leads to partial lab shutdown

Ejeckam's warnings did lead to parts of the lab being shut down for several weeks. The inquiry has been told that few errors involving hormone receptor tests — which help determine whether a patient is a candidate for the potentially lifesaving drug Tamoxifen — were made after the lab was overhauled in 2003.

Ejeckam's memo did not come to light until May 2007, when Williams tabled it in the house of assembly soon after he learned of it. Williams and his cabinet called for the judicial inquiry soon after that point.

Justice Margaret Cameron has been hearing evidence since March on how almost 400 breast cancer patients received inaccurate lab tests. The hearings are expected to conclude this week.

Meeting never happened

Cameron has often been told that Ejeckam's warnings did not travel far within the health-care system. Senior officials at the St. John's Health Care Corp. testified they had not seen the warning, and Ejeckam said he left with lab managers to organize meetings with others. Such a meeting never happened.

Eastern Health did, however, launch an ambitious retesting program in 2005, soon after it learned there were serious problems with a select number of cases.

The authority decided, though, not to inform patients or the public, on grounds that it would cause undue alarm among patients. Even when news broke, the authority downplayed the issue, and the inquiry has been told that Eastern Health passed on wrong or incomplete information to government officials.

Williams told the inquiry he became alarmed in May 2007 when he realized that the picture that had been presented to him was not true.

He said he believed no one intended to hurt patients during the saga, but that patients' health nonetheless was affected by poor decisions.