Newfoundland and Labrador patients should have a legal right to know about a lab mistake or any other adverse event that may affect their health, the Cameron inquiry has recommended.

In her report released publicly on Tuesday, Justice Margaret Cameron advised the Newfoundland and Labrador government to amend the law to ensure that patients are never again left in the dark about medical errors.

Cameron was sharply critical of Eastern Health for how it communicated with patients and the public, and for not telling some breast cancer patients about serious problems with hormone receptor problems for a lengthy period of time.

"I recommend that these rights be entrenched in legislation and that they be given priority over any prohibition contained [in] the Evidence Act," wrote Cameron.

Eastern Health had fought, unsuccessfully, in Newfoundland Supreme Court to keep confidential the reports of two external experts who between them uncovered a litany of problems about how Eastern Health's lab was working.

The authority said that the Evidence Act gave it the right to withhold the reports. That court action pushed back the start of the Cameron inquiry, which dealt in great detail with the often-scathing findings of the external reviewers.

Health Minister Ross Wiseman said entrenching patients' rights in legislation was not something that his department had done any preliminary work on.

"It's something that we'll need to have some discussions with other stakeholders, the medical association in particular for example, health authorities themselves. We'll have to put together some people to look at what is current best practice around the country because we're going to be making some changes in the legislation and we want to make sure we've framed it appropriately," he told a news conference in St. John's.

The patients, several of whom attended the news conference, were the reason why the government commissioned the inquiry in the first place, Wiseman said.

"The answers this report provides today give us some direction, provides some commentary for us as to how we could strengthen the system so that what they experienced will never be experienced by their daughters and other women in this province," he said.

Time for patients to move forward

Bev Green, a breast cancer patient who was the inquiry's first witness, said before reading the report on Tuesday that she expects the inquiry's work will lead to fundamental change.

"The biggest challenge is making the patient No. 1," she told CBC News.

"We can't change the past but hopefully we can change the future," said Green, who told Cameron the first of several heartbreaking stories.

She detailed how a mistaken test led her and her medical team to wrongfully conclude that Tamoxifen, a potent antihormonal therapy that has been clinically shown to improve outcomes for some patients, would cause her more harm than good.

Green, whose criticism of Eastern Health was caustic during her testimony last March, said she now feels it's time for patients to move forward.

"I'm very peaceful, actually, and very thankful for every day," said Green, whose cancer has since spread to her liver.

"It was difficult [being the first witness] and I was angry at that time, but there comes a time in a person's life that we have to move past those feelings. You know, I think we made a difference."

Patient didn't think she'd live to see report

Donna Howell, a St. John's breast cancer patient who was wrongly told she was hormone receptor negative and missed an opportunity to get treatment with Tamoxifen, didn't think she'd live to see the report released.

When she spoke out in December 2007, her health had been torn to shreds by powerful cancer treatment. The treatment stabilized her cancer, and it hasn't grown for three months although she expects it will grow again.

Howell watched the release of the report Tuesday, and she is cautiously optimistic that the Cameron report will provide government with a pattern to create a reliable cancer care system.

"Make things safer for our daughters, granddaughters whoever who might be unfortunate enough to get this disease so they have the best chance that they have at living for as long as they can," she said.