PREMIER WILLIAMS "APOLOGY": GLOBE AND MAIL'S VIEW;

BUT WHO IN A POSITION OF AUTHORITY ALLOWED THIS SLIPSHOD TESTING TO GO ON SO LONG?

WHO TRIED TO KEEP IT HUSH-HUSH ONCE IT WAS DISCOVERED, EVEN AT THE POSSIBLE RISK OF FURTHER HARM TO THOSE WHO MIGHT NOT YET BE AWARE OF THE FAULTY TESTS?

THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF EASTERN HEALTH, THE PROVINCE'S BIGGEST HEALTH AUTHORITY, CERTAINLY KNEW, SINCE IT WAS THEIR LAB.

THEIR CONCERN WAS DAMAGE CONTROL.

GLOBE AND MAIL EDITORIAL: 29 OCTOBER, 2008;

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Globe and Mail's take on Williams "apology" ran today under the heading: "A reign of error's ramifications."

"Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams plausibly denied responsibility yesterday at a judicial inquiry into the province's unconscionable eight-year record of botching cancer tests," the editorial begins;

"But whether plausible or not, his testimony marked a low point for accountability in government," it continues.

""He didn't know about the hundreds of botched tests and potentially fatal results until he read about them in a newspaper.

He didn't keep detailed records on his day-to-day activities. That would have eaten into his workday, he explained.

His office receives 125,000 to 150,000 contacts a year, and he can't be told everything.

He is "disappointed" no one told him. (No, he apparently didn't fire anyone.)

He has instructed cabinet ministers to tell him the next time something important happens.

"If the ramifications of what's going on are that people are dying as a result of the mistakes ... that's a significant change of circumstance that I would certainly liked to have been aware of."

To straighten out (and fill out) that sentence: The health system botched 383 tests on breast-cancer patients from 1997 to 2005, out of 1,013 that had to be redone. One woman had a double mastectomy, needlessly.

Of the people whose tests were inaccurate, 108 had died by the beginning of the inquiry led by Madam Justice Margaret Cameron of the province's Supreme Court.

And no one, not even his own chief of staff, told the Premier, or the public.

The reign of deadly error was finally halted when a doctor wondered why her patient wasn't responding to treatment, and had her retested.

It was no more difficult than that.

An external review found that the pathology lab's technologists did not "completely understand the theory" of the tests.

But who in a position of authority allowed this slipshod testing to go on so long?

Who tried to keep it hush-hush once it was discovered, even at the possible risk of further harm to those who might not yet be aware of the faulty tests?

The people in charge of Eastern Health, the province's biggest health authority, certainly knew, since it was their lab.

Their concern was damage control.

Then-health minister John Ottenheimer, whose department oversees Eastern Health, also knew, and wanted to tell (or so he claimed), but accepted Eastern's advice to avoid panicking people.

And the Premier's chief of staff received e-mails telling him.

But he couldn't remember at the inquiry whether he had talked to anyone about them. (Judge Cameron rolled her eyes at that one.)

The Premier was contrite yesterday.

He apologized to patients.

But in weeks past, he set a new standard for public hostility to an inquiry that his own government called.

He accused Judge Cameron of presiding over a witch hunt, or an inquisition.

He appealed to her to halt aggressive questioning ("this is not a Perry Mason exercise") from counsel.

This is at best needlessly insulting, and at worst an attempt to intimidate.

Sometimes all people can do is roll their eyes.""

The Globe and Mail points its editorial finger at "damage control."

Sound familiar?

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;