Dear editor, The public should take the goings-ons with misdiagnosis in our province seriously and, yes, we can change the system.I remember my parents talking about Tommy Douglas when I was a child and later on as an adult when Mr. Douglas said, “There will come a day they tell you there is no money for health care and don’t you believe them.”To the letter writer who cannot be identified due to the clause in the contract with St. Joseph’s General Hospital, would the same clause also apply to not tell if misdiagnoses were going on at St. Joseph’s Hospital?The writer talks about respect to the radiologist, yet Mr. Pontus’ (St. Joe’s CEO Michael Pontus) first concern was his employee, not the patients.In May 2008, Dr. Z (radiologist Dr. Joe Zanbilowicz) reported no cancer on my mammogram and ultrasound.I know my breasts are sick and my doctor tells me I cannot force a surgeon to biopsy with both tests reporting no concern. I said refer me — I’ll beg. Three weeks later, biopsy says serious advanced cancer.The surgeon tells me Victoria told him and Dr. Zanbilowicz, take a second look and, ”Now they see the cancer.”The letter writer warrants Dr. Zanbilowicz was only one out of two radiologists for many years in the Valley and that is the more reason I say look back on his work. The issue is people’s lives; people are dead and many are fighting to survive.I personally don’t care if the radiologist is the cat’s meow, but being told for over three years there was no cancer and only when I insisted on doing his job and ask for a biopsy and then my film that shows the cancer is destroyed — it became very personal. About the splash in the paper, is the letter writer referring to 2008 when I voiced my concerns to the public and Pontus to this day says no misdiagnosis ever at St. Joseph’s?The norm for standard care was not and is not being done for patients at the Comox hospital. I was not told that a nuclear physician-radiologist delegated his services in Comox and a technician was allowed at St. Joseph’s to do procedures on me authorized only to physicians. I now know only an NCM radiologist is licensed in B.C. to do this procedure, but that day in the Comox hospital this technician was permitted to act as my NCM-R and I had no clue.She directly injected a needle of isotope on a hematoma [injury from biopsy] the size of a baseball in the nipple with no freezing. What was allowed to be done to me was inhuman.I begged mercy — take the needle out, call the doctor, something is wrong. I was told he can’t be called — they were waiting at surgery. Then I was given a $2,800 PET-CT (sentinel node) to find the hot nodes but there was no radiologist to read the scans to guide the surgeon.Who got paid for this expensive test? Why was I forced to go through this cruelty? Wrongs have to be exposed so the authorities learn from this tragedy because serious violations have gone on and covered up. New rules have to be put in place to protect the patients and every one of us eventually get our turn in that bed.A judicial inquiry is a start. The letter writer said he or she worked in Comox and Dr. Zanbilowicz was your teacher and you made lots of mistakes. Did he sign off on your mistakes?I know mistakes are done in hospitals — I’m a victim of it, but when they are allowed to be internal secrets, then the problem is never exposed.  I left the game of playing doctor when I was a child and when I went to St. Joseph’s Hospital in 2008, I was expecting a doctor to be doing procedures on me, not someone who was delegated that day to play doctor and harmed me. Yvonne Kafka,Cumberland

Comox Valley Record