A woman with breast cancer told a judicial inquiry in St. John's Wednesday that she was shocked by her doctor's conduct, after he gave her devastating news about a misdiagnosis via her answering machine.

Elizabeth White, of Heart's Content, was testifying at the inquiry established to investigate how hundreds of breast cancer patients received faulty hormone receptor tests for treatment diagnosis by the Eastern Health authority.

White told the commission she heard the shattering news that her test results had been wrong from her oncologist on her message machine, nearly eight years after she was first diagnosed with cancer.

"He told me that my report had changed from negative to a high positive," White said.

The news came about one year after White had heard rumours about botched testing at Eastern Health's pathology labs and had begun to ask questions of her doctors.

Patient 'lost all faith and confidence'

White said she believes if someone had told her earlier about the misdiagnosis, she could have accessed more effective drugs, such as Tamoxifin, an anti-hormone drug proven to be successful in treating breast cancer.

Norman White, from Summerside, also took the stand Wednesday. White was diagnosed with a cancerous tumour in his left breast in 1999.

He told the commission he has had many sleepless nights since finding out he, too, was misdiagnosed for the treatment he needed.

"I've lost all faith and confidence in the people who we put a lot of trust in," White said.

The first witnesses to take the stand in the inquiry were asked yesterday whether anyone from Eastern Health or any doctors ever contacted them with an explanation or an apology.

To every question, each quietly replied no.

The first week of the commission is dedicated to testimony from patients and families of patients who have been affected by the health-care scandal.

The province retested 1,013 patient samples taken from 1997 to 2005 designed to determine what type of treatment the cancer patient would receive. Of those samples, 383 were found to have been done incorrectly.