Negligent Cancer Screening Put Patients at Risk: Miramichi Hospital
More on the cancer screening fiasco unfolding in New Brunswick. The Miramichi Hospital claims in a lawsuit filed by the disgraced pathologist that is the subject of potential criminal charges that there were issues about the doctors work as far back as 1998.
Dr. Rajgopal Menon was suspended by New Brunswick’s College of Physicians and Surgeons following a complaint from the Miramichi Regional Hospital Authority about Menon’s “deficient practice” involving “erroneous interpretations of surgical specimens.”
Menon sued the Hospital over the allegations. In a defence filed by the Hospital Authority officials claims that Menon’s:
“lack of professional standards have resulted in patients being placed at risk as well as other physicians, and in particular surgeons, who must rely on (him) for accurate and timely pathological diagnosis.”
The Hospital’s allegations are a double edged sword. If the facts in the defence are correct, it may mean that cancer patients who have been “placed at risk” (not able to receive timely treatment) due to Menon’s “lack of professional standards” may have a potential medical malpractice claim against the Hospital Authority for failing to take proper steps to ensure patient safety when it became aware of the risks due to Menon’s “lack of professional standards”.
The Canadian Press has reported the story of one man whose father died of cancer in 2007 just weeks after the disease was discovered by his doctors in Tracadie, New Brunswick.
The man’s son, Roger Vautour:
…was told by officials at the Miramichi Hospital that laboratory tests on his father in 2003 were handled by Dr. Rajgopal Menon and will be part of a comprehensive review of the pathologist’s work.
The “comprehensive review” is going to involve over 15000 test results from potential cancer patients stemming back more than a decade! The potential liability for the doctor, and the Health Authority, is difficult to fathom.
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