Ches Crosbie said it could take years for the internal culture at Eastern Health to change. (CBC)

A St. John's lawyer who launched a class-action lawsuit over botched breast cancer tests said seven months of testimony at the Cameron inquiry have yielded invaluable detail and insight into what went wrong for hundreds of patients.

Justice Margaret Cameron concluded testimony on Friday on how almost 400 breast cancer patients received inaccurate results with hormone receptor tests to help determine whether a patient can benefit from the antihormonal drug Tamoxifen.

Ches Crosbie, who had standing throughout the inquiry on behalf of patients he represents through a class-action lawsuit certified last year in Newfoundland Supreme Court, said going through the inquiry was more than worthwhile.

"So I've asked myself where we would we be without the inquiry? I feel confident we would've been able to bring the suit to a successful conclusion, to a closure, to a good result for clients, that we would've settled it," said Crosbie.

"But we wouldn't have known a tenth that has come out through the inquiry process. So it's been a very, very useful exercise."

The lawsuit remains unresolved. Crosbie and lawyers representing Eastern Health's insurers are negotiating damages, which likely will fold into the millions of dollars.

During the inquiry, Cameron heard about poor training and monitoring in the St. John's pathology lab, where scores of hormone receptor tests were mishandled between 1997 and 2005.

Eastern Health launched a massive retesting program in 2005, even though a now-retired pathologist had flagged the very issues in 2003. That warning led to a partial shutdown of the lab and a reorganization, but few officials and physicians were ever briefed.

A key thread running through the inquiry was the decision to withhold information from the public. Eastern Health officials decided for various reasons, including not wanting to alarm patients but also over officials' legal concerns, not to tell the public about the retesting program once it started.

As well, Eastern Health held back key findings when it briefed the media in December 2006.

'Culture change' needed: lawyer

Crosbie said evidence presented at the inquiry shows a need for a "culture change" at Eastern Health.

"Eastern Health, I think many people would agree, manifested as their first priority, 'Let's, you know, don't get caught,' where their first priority should have been disclosure," Crosbie said.

Crosbie said he would like the inquiry to lead to greater transparency and accountability in how similar issues are handled in the future.

That, he said, will not take place quickly.

"All the same people, the decision-makers are still in place. A cultural shift takes a long time to achieve in any field," said Crosbie.

"So it may not happen in one year or six months. In fact, it may be the work of a generation."