MONTREAL - A Montreal woman is seeking permission to file a class-action suit against the provincial government for its alleged mishandling of breast-cancer tests for thousands of patients.
Marianne Tonnelier, diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2008, has filed a request to initiate the lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court.
Her lawyer, Bruce Johnston, said government inaction has put more than 2,000 Quebec women fighting breast cancer in limbo because they don't know if they're receiving the correct treatment.
A study released last month by Quebec's association of pathologists found that cancer patients in the province may have received inadequate treatment because of botched testing.
Since the report's release, the government announced it would re-examine samples taken from about 2,100 Quebec breast-cancer sufferers to ensure the women are receiving proper treatment. The new testing will be completed before the end of 2009.
Johnston said that until then, the patients will have to live with the unknown.
"All of these women are now living in complete uncertainty," he said Monday.
"Regardless if they had the right treatment or not, for the last month, (they) have been living (under) incredible stress."
The request alleges the Health Department knew about quality control problems in the province's pathology departments for at least a year and a half.
"They had clear evidence in their files that there was a very serious problem with the reliability of these tests and yet they did nothing and warned no one," Johnston said.
In her class-action request filed last Friday, Tonnelier, the director of a community organization in Montreal, called the province's attitude toward women with breast cancer "offensive" and "reckless."
"She was absolutely outraged by the bungling of the whole affair by the government," her attorney said.
The suit claims $35,000 in damages for each woman who received a negative test for HER-2 or hormonal receptors.
Earlier this month, a committee of experts reporting to Quebec Health Minister Yves Bolduc said there was no evidence the initial tests were incorrect, but it recommended the samples be re-examined as a precautionary measure.
The new tests would be done on tissue already taken from women between April 1, 2008, and June 1, 2009, and who had a tumour of one centimetre or more.
Bolduc's press attache, Marie-Eve Bedard, said Monday the government would not comment on the class action suit because it is before the courts.
