Dozens of unsuspecting men in South Australia have tested positive for prostate cancer. Luckily for them, it was all a big mistake.
Dr. Peter Sutherland, an Adelaide urologist, first spotted the discrepancy when some of his patients returned to his clinic dejected and concerned. He started getting suspicious when those who already had their prostate glands removed also got positive results. No less than 40 patients were affected by the blunder, ABC reported.
"Thankfully we repeated the test with other labs and showed it wasn't correct," said Sutherland. "There was some real human misery associated with this in some men who were seriously worried they had recurrent cancer."
In a statement shared to The Advertiser, South Australian health minister Jack Snelling revealed that defective testing kits from a third-party supplier caused the wrong diagnoses. He did not mention the company's name, but stressed that it could be held liable for the blunder.
Julia Squire, the head of Adelaide's health network, urged the public to continue to have faith in SA Pathology's services. She reasoned that the healthcare industry isn't 100 percent infallible.
"It's really important that people feel confident when things don't go right that they know about it," she mused. "And that those issues are identified and we deal with it appropriately."
Sutherland expressed the same sentiment. He believed SA Pathology wasn't entirely responsible for the mistake. Staffers were even surprised to learn about the wrong diagnoses.
"This is very complex chemistry that's going on here and I do have some sympathy with them because this is a test that they've run for a long time and it's always been reliable," Sutherland explained. "So while it did take some weeks for them to get onto this, I can understand why they were reticent to believe it."
Despite the wave of support SA Pathology has been getting, South Australian health officials announced over the weekend that the organization's executive director, Ken Barr, had been relieved of his duty following the mistake. Health minister Jack Snelling has since asked for an independent investigation on the matter, as per Daily Mail.
