Claus and Lynda Burg have spent 46 years together, but a cancer misdiagnosis has left them reeling — and fighting for justice
After a 10-year battle with cancer, Claus Burg was over the moon when he was given the all-clear. But the doctors had got it wrong — now Claus and his wife are desperately trying to get justice before it’s too late.
Claus Burg was over the moon when doctors gave him the all-clear from cancer after a decade of treatment and regular check-ups.
He believed the years of invasive therapy and tests had led to him triumphing over a cancer that had already claimed his bladder and prostate.
The 70-year-old planned to continue his yearly road trips, which took him and his wife of 40 years, Lynda, all around the country.
“We have seen most of Australia, from the tip of Cape York to the southwest of WA and Esperance,” Claus said.
“We would have kept doing that, not as often as we get older but we would have still gone on the road.”
But the couple’s plans were ruined by a second cancer diagnosis late last year that was missed for months. Doctors have now told Claus he only has a year or two to live.
By the time Claus was diagnosed, the cancer, which had started as a tiny spot on scans taken in February 2017 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, had grown to envelop his stomach and spread to his liver.
The couple were told Claus was terminal, that there would be no more yearly road trips across Australia, and that he was unlikely to see the birth of any children their son Tony might have. “I was devastated; Claus had me drive home but I couldn’t see through my tears,” Lynda, 65, said.
“I was so angry and I thought about how wrong it was. The surgeon gave him one to two years.”
Claus was more stoic. He was furious that the cancer had been missed but his main concern lay elsewhere.
“My main worry is how Lynda copes when I’m gone,” he said.
“My comfort is that we have a good support base with neighbours and friends.”
The couple is suing SA Health for medical negligence in a desperate effort to leave Linda with some compensation.
Health Minister Stephen Wade issued a letter of apology earlier this month and said that the Government would be a “model litigant” when dealing with the couple.
Four decades of marriage and 46 years living together have left Claus and Lynda with a lifetime of memories but their initial meeting at the Windsor Gardens Hotel in 1972 stands out.
Lynda was 18 at the time and said that Claus, then 23, was “gorgeous”.
“He had long hair and a beard, he used to wear a sheepskin jacket and he could sing back then,” she said.
Claus said the pair “clicked pretty much straight away”.
Shortly after they started dating, Claus was offered a drilling job in Condoblin, NSW.
“We were talking about going on a working holiday and Claus said ‘seeing as they know us at the Windsor Gardens Hotel, why don’t you try and get some experience behind the bar?’,” Lynda said.
“My dad was pretty worried that I was leaving so quickly with Claus. He said ‘what happens if he dumps you in the middle of nowhere?’. I said ‘Dad, that’s not going to happen’.”
After Condoblin, the pair moved to Mount Isa in Queensland, then Brisbane, before returning to South Australia, where Claus spent the last 19 years of his career working as a garbo and Lynda continued working behind the bar.
Then, in 2008, a doctor diagnosed Claus with bladder cancer.
“He scrapped the bladder but it had already grown into the wall, so I lost the bladder and prostate,” Claus said. “Then I had CAT scans and flushouts ever since.”
Last year, Claus’s oncologist discovered a spot in his lungs and ordered more tests.
However, under the care of a new specialist, he was given a clean bill of health and told that for the first time in a decade he would not need to have periodic scans and tests.
But within months, Claus was suffering a pain in his side and losing weight.
“Because I see him every day, I didn’t notice he had lost weight until one day I came into the living room, saw him and said ‘how did I miss it?’,” Lynda said.
“But Claus’s response to that was that I didn’t see it because he didn’t see it.”
Doctors fed a tube down Claus’s throat and discovered his stomach was a mass of cancer. A senior surgeon at the Lyell McEwin Hospital made the unusual step of recommending the Burgs write to Mr Wade to demand the system be changed to prevent similar lapses. The cause was taken up by Labor MP Blair Boyer.
“As a relatively new member of parliament, it was confronting to sit with the Burgs in their living room and hear Claus speak candidly about how he was dying because of the simplest of mistakes in our health system,” Mr Boyer said.
“Throughout this tragic saga, Claus has only sought to change the system to ensure this can’t happen to somebody else.”
