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Results from an MRI report

Posted By Enraged

"Results from an MRI report"

About: Allied Health (Bass Coast Health)

(as the patient),

Hi, I am telling my story retrospectively as it is sometime since this has occurred. Another reason for doing this is to stop this from happening to another client of the Bass Coast health service or to their families. 

In short this is the story. I had an appointment in March with my oncologist at the Rigby Centre to commence the next part of my breast cancer treatment, this is what the appointment was for anyway.

I was greeted by the oncologist asking me how I was feeling, I replied that I was feeling well. The oncologist looked surprised at this reply and then informed me that a 6 mm brain tumour had been found following the MRI.

I believe the oncologist could tell by the shocked look on my face that I did not know.  This was not only very upsetting for myself but also, as I understand, for the oncologist as well as the medical student that was also present during the consult.  I am unable to recall the exact date that I had this attended. Think that this was attended in January sometime. I feel sure that you will be able to follow this up as this was attended at radiology at Bass Coast.

In short this report was not sent to my GP, it was only sent to the oncologist some months later. The impact on myself after receiving this news and also on my family was immense. My husband and children were unable to work due this upsetting news. I find that I am sitting here in tears recalling this story. I implore you not to allow this to happen to any other clients or their families. 

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Responses

Response from Jan Child, CEO, Bass Coast Health nearly 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Jan Child
CEO,
Bass Coast Health

Submitted on 3/08/2022 at 2:24 PM
Published on Care Opinion at 2:26 PM

picture of Jan Child

Dear Enraged,

I am so sorry. I know that our Oncologist has been in touch with you over the past weeks regularly and has apologised for what happened to you, and I understand completely why even writing this post would distress you. I can only imagine your trauma and your families distress and we are genuinely sorry that this reporting error occurred, and sorry that this resulted in a gap regarding the follow up on your results.

I also thank you for speaking with Renee, our Chief Medical Officer about your experience and your post. As discussed, Bass Coast Health has raised this very concerning communication breakdown with our contracted Radiology provider who is responsible for communicating results to General Practitioners. I can assure you they are as concerned as we are about the lapse in their process that occurred in your circumstances, and we are working together to improve Radiology reporting processes to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. I have forwarded your post to the senior Victorian managers in the Radiology service so that they understand the significant impact this error had on you.

I thank you for your openness in your post. I know that Renee has offered further communication once our provider has finalised our process improvements. I also understand that further discussion regarding this might be distressing for you and we will be led by you about how much you want to know of the changes. It is very important that incidents such as these are dealt with transparently and that mistakes become learning opportunities for treating teams. Your post enables this, so we genuinely thank you for taking the time.

We were all extremely relieved as the picture became clear from further scans and discussions with the Oncologist, that you did not have a brain metastasis. Such good news for you, and whilst it does not remove the trauma you experienced as a result of the initial report, we are so grateful that you were not impacted physically as a result of this communication breakdown. It doesn’t change the terrible mistake though, so please be assured BCH will keep doing everything we can to mitigate this issue recurring again for others.

Please feel free to call Renee or the Oncologist if you would like to chat about any of this, or if we can help in any other way, and please, once again, accept our most sincere apologies for your awful experience.

Kindest Regards,

Jan

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