Eastern Health and its insurance company have accepted liability for some patients involved in the breast cancer testing scandal, according to a statement released Friday afternoon.

Upon reviewing Justice Margaret Cameron's report, the Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada said it accepted her conclusion that there were failures in the health system.

"Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada accepts that Eastern Health is liable to these patients, and fully intends to honour its obligation to deal promptly and fairly with them," the statement read.

Patients involved in a class action lawsuit certified in Newfoundland Supreme Court against Eastern Health, the Newfoundland health authority at the centre of Cameron's inquiry, were hopeful it would accept liability for the way their test results were handled.

Cameron's three-volume report on the seven-month public inquiry was released to the public Tuesday.

Cameron heard often compelling — and sometimes heartbreaking — testimony about what went wrong between 1997 and 2005, when more than 400 breast cancer patients were given the wrong results on specific lab tests. The wrong results meant that some patients did not receive potentially lifesaving antihormonal treatment.

Friday's statement from the HIROC says the insurance company is "respectful of the strain that patients have endured and is proceeding with that sensitivity in mind. HIROC has stated its preference to attempt to resolve the class action with minimal engagement of the court process.

"HIROC believes that a settlement can be reached in a timely manner and that negotiations toward that end should begin immediately."

However, the statement also says the company is having difficulty identifying the extent of injuries patients sustained and that there are people in the class action suit who were not injured by faulty hormone receptor tests.

Hormone receptor tests, the laboratory tests at the heart of the scandal and public inquiry, help determine the course of treatment a breast cancer patient will receive.

Minnie Hoyles, a cancer patient and member of the class action, said the reference to the extent of injuries in the statement worries her.

"Using that kind of language to people that have suffered ... It's just pitting one group against another," she said. "Many of us have suffered emotionally through this, and I don't think that they are taking in ... the fact that people have been totally emotionally drained by this."

Peter Dawe, executive director of the Canadian Cancer Society in Newfoundland and Labrador, said he would not comment on a legal case in the courts but spoke to CBC News in general terms, saying it wasn't just the patients whose tests were found to be incorrect who suffered.

"Any number of people who went through this process around the hormone testing for breast cancer patients … were affected directly," Dawe said Friday. "Speaking on behalf of cancer patients, breast cancer patients, this whole fiasco has dragged out long enough. We want to see justice served for all of these people."