Pathology overhaul after prostate cancer bungle
ONE SA man was given “unjustified” radiation treatment after receiving a dodgy prostate cancer test and a total of 52 were wrongly led to believe their cancers had returned, a damning report has found.
CHEMO underdosing victim Andrew Knox says the State Government has failed to learn anything from his compensation case, and should actively offer payments to men wrongly diagnosed with prostate cancer instead of forcing them into litigation.
Health Minister Jack Snelling has released a damning report into a separate treatment bungle scandal, revealed by the Sunday Mail in April, where 52 men received false positives for prostate cancer. One later received “unjustified” radiotherapy treatment.
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care inquiry was scathing of former SA Pathology boss Ken Barr, who was immediately sacked when the issue became public, and called for a complete overhaul of the agency and its testing.
Mr Snelling said the report, which details major failings of management by Mr Barr, proves the sacking was “completely justified”.
The report repeated notes that the agency failed to recognise the seriousness of the problem until media exposure of the cover-up sparked widespread public outage.
Mr Snelling said he shared the “anger, frustration and disappointment” of the men affected in the scandal but said they would have to apply for compensation.
“We will make sure that any claims ... are appropriately dealt with in a model litigant fashion,” he said.
Mr Knox and four other chemo scandal victims accepted what he called a “too little, too late” $100,000 offer in June.
He said the prostate victims should not be forced into the same suffering he endured.
“To make them go individually as 50-plus cases to litigation is unconscionable,” he said. “They should make offers ... that is considered fair, and then give the victims the chance to challenge if they wish. That’s a real model litigant.”
He revealed one of his fellow chemo underdosing victims was in the final stages of life, and renewed calls for a judicial inquiry “before he passed”.
The Government has previously been criticised by victims of a separate bungle, the dodgy chemo dosing scandal, for obstructing their attempts to gain fast and fair compensation.
The prostate study makes five major recommendations, including a public apology to victims.
It also demands a major overhaul of SA Pathology Management, improved quality control of testing mechanisms, national accreditation for local labs and new disclosure policies.
The report shows that complaints were first raised with SA Pathology in January, but that no serious action was taken until the Sunday Mail went public with the scandal on April 4.
It also criticises Mr Barr’s spinning of the event as it became clear within SA Pathology that the test were faulty, with particular criticism levelled at a public notice released to urologists in March, which “conveyed no impression that patients might have been adversely affected”.
“Following public exposure of the issue, a more systematic attempt was made to establish the patients potentially affected and to notify their treating clinicians,” the report states.
“This should have occurred at a much earlier stage.
“The above course of events demonstrates serious deficiencies in the governance of SA Pathology by the former executive director”.
The report says an “appropriately qualified and experienced person” must now be brought in to drive an SA Pathology overhaul to ensure adequate testing and patient care.
The tests were found to be “inaccurate at low levels of detection”, leading to false positives.
Outgoing SA Health chief executive David Swan today said: “I’d like to apologise to the men in question and their families for receiving these false positive results”.
“This review ... highlighted a range of serious management and governance issues,” he said.
“We are determined to correct those areas that have been highlighted in those reports.”
Mr Swan said SA Health did not know if the unjustified treatment had negative effects.
“They had only had a small number of treatments,” he said. “It’s not knowable. It’s only a small number (of treatments) and you’d trust that nothing will come of that.”
Mr Swan said Mr Barr deserved blame as “he was in charge” of the failed agency.
Mr Snelling said the Government would consider cases for compensation.
“The Government is profoundly sorry to the 52 men who received these inaccurate results. Not just the one who had the treatment, but also the others who obviously were put though mental anguish” he said. “With regard to any legal issues, we will make sure that any claims that are put in, that those are appropriately dealt with in a model litigant fashion.
“We will make sure that they are expedited. “That’s the normal process.”
Mr Snelling said the report was “unambiguous” on Mr Barr’s “manifest failings”.
“He not only failed to deal with this issue appropriately, he actually took steps to cover it up,” Mr Snelling said. “The notice that was put on the SA Pathology website, I think anybody reading that would take the view that it was an exercise in backside covering.”
In an exclusive interview with The Advertiser following his dismissalin April, Mr Barr rejected Mr Snelling’s claim he “covered up” the bungle and like many of his peers, said he believed he was being made into a scapegoat because of the many controversies at SA Health.
“I think it was simply a shock-and-awe display to take pressure off the Government because of the myriad other problems facing SA Health,” Mr Barr said.