ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Premier Danny Williams defended his embattled health minister Wednesday amid growing calls for his resignation after an inquiry concluded a failure in accountability contributed to Newfoundland's botched breast cancer testing scandal.
"I don't think there's anybody in my caucus that would be as capable of handling this firestorm ... as Minister (Ross) Wiseman," Williams said.
The premier's comments came a day after an inquiry report into the flawed tests found the province's entire health system failed its patients.
In her report, Justice Margaret Cameron said Wiseman relayed incorrect information to the public about the errors because of his "indiscriminate acceptance" of information given to him by the health board that bungled the tests.
"There are areas where government, I guess, was probably not as diligent as they could've been," Williams conceded.
"But to try ... and hang this around minister Wiseman's neck I think is very, very unfair. He did, in all fairness to him, act on the advice of experts in the field, which is what I do everyday I'm in office."
Some members of the public have called on Wiseman to quit his post for his role in the affair. But Williams said he won't demand his resignation because the testing errors occurred long before Wiseman became health minister in January 2007.
"If the premier wants people in this province to regain faith in the system, then I think he has to recognize the need for having new faces," countered NDP Leader Lorraine Michael.
Cameron also found glaring errors at the St. John's lab that processed the flawed tests, saying quality control there was "so little and so haphazard as to be non-existent."
That prompted a warning Wednesday from a national body that patient safety in three provinces and northern Canada may be at risk because medical laboratory technologists there aren't regulated.
Kurt Davis, executive director of the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science, urged Newfoundland, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and the Territories to introduce professional regulation of lab technologists.
"This is very concerning because employers can basically hire whoever they want," he said.
"There's issues of patient safety, in worker safety, in patient confidentiality."
Davis singled out B.C. for "procrastinating" on a 10-year-old proposal to regulate the profession and called on P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Territories to implement mandatory external accreditation of their medical labs to meet internationally accepted standards.
Up to 85 per cent of decisions by physicians are based on medical lab results, according to the Canadian Society for Medical Laboratory Science, which represents more than 14,000 medical laboratory technologists across Canada.
Cameron issued 60 recommendations that, among other things, call for more training for clinicians, improved record-keeping and mandatory continuing education for laboratory technologists.
She has asked the Newfoundland government to report on the status of her recommendations by March 31, 2010.
Williams promised to quickly follow through at least half of her recommendations and look further into those that will require more time to implement.
The inquiry was launched two years ago to probe how at least 386 men and women had their breast cancer tests botched from 1997 to 2005.
The tests were intended to determine the most appropriate course of treatment.
At least 108 patients whose tests were misread have died in what is the province's biggest public health failure. But it will likely never be known how many of them, if any, died as a result of missing out on potentially life-saving treatment.
