"The purpose in seeking you out is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are barely heard in this outrageous debacle, because I, too, am a cancer survivor, six years and counting. We, the cancer patients, seem to have no locus standi in this situation, save as numbers (223 patients) who may have received increased external beam radiation doses from a linear accelerator machine that was miscalibrated anywhere ranging from 3 to 19 per cent-depending on whose story you believe. "It is burning me up inside. Not just the possible over radiation of frail human bodies already being ravaged by an implacable enemy, cancer, but the entire way in which this fiasco has been allowed to develop and continues to be played out on the front pages of the newspapers, reports on allegations swirling around the owners, medical authorities of various disciplines, state representatives but not the effects such an overdose could engender on the men, women and children of our nation."
-A reader responding to last week's column
Letter from Dr Anesa Ahamad
In last week's column, I interviewed one of the 223 patients who were exposed to higher than recommended doses of radiation at the Brian Lara Cancer Treatment Centre (BLCTC) between January 17, 2009 and June 7, 2010. A year later, she still has not been told how much she has been over radiated. "Did I get more or less than the touted 14 per cent? Am I going to drop dead of cardiac arrest three years hence? I don't know and no one can tell me. We, the patients are broke and worn out. All 223 of us (or less as some of us have died) have this cloud hanging over us for the next five years, in addition to dealing with a cancer diagnosis."
This patient's testimonial also brought a response from the doctor central to the imbroglio surrounding the BLCTC, Dr Anesa Ahamad. As a columnist, I've refrained from entering the debate of "who done it;" whether or not the centre was "sabotaged" under the care of Dr Ahamad, the former chief operating officer, clinical director and clinical oncologist of the BLCTC (who left the facility on acrimonious terms with the BLCTC board), or whether as counterclaimed by Dr Ahamad, there was noncompliance and negligence by the board of BLCTC who failed to heed her plea to ensure mandatory checks on the linear accelerator machine were done.
Without taking sides and in the spirit of ensuring that the patient remains central to this story, I am reproducing a letter from Dr Ahamad to me, which addresses the concerns of over radiated patients: