Health Minister Tom Osborne says Central Health worked quickly to inform the public when concerns surrounding the interpretation of mammograms were first raised last week.

Minister Osborne was notified last week.

Central Health discovered the situation last Wednesday and informed the Department of Health late that same day.

Minister Osborne acknowledges the fear and anxiety the situation has created.

While Central Health indicates the risk to patients is low, “any risk is too much risk, or any image that has a different interpretation is too many,” says Osborne.

Investigation Underway

As for how the issue was allowed to fly under the radar for nearly three years, Central Health President and CEO Andree Robichaud says that will come with the results of the investigation currently underway.

She says they do regular audits of the quality of their machines, and they maintain certain standards.

Robichaud says they’re looking at why this happened, but they’re not there yet. She says their main concern right now is around disclosure.

She says in the days following the discovery of the issue they had to make sure they identified which patients need their files looked at. Now they’ve begun a quality review to identify what to put in place to ensure it never happens again.