Cancer patient Tanya Duffus said she was shocked to discover that specimen from her breast, which was cut off on March 3, had been sitting in a plastic keg at the hospital for nearly a week after the operation, instead of being sent immediately to the laboratory.

Duffus’ anguish was made even worse because she was given a July appointment to see the doctor as she was told this was how long it would take to provide the lab results which would determine the stage of her cancer and what treatment ought to be prescribed.

“I would have to wait all the way until July before I could get any treatment. By then I could be dead,” she lamented.

Duffus opted to take the specimen to a private laboratory instead but was initially given the run-around by hospital staff, who informed her that the specimen had been sent to the lab days earlier.

But after insisting that the specimen be located she was eventually directed to the transport department.

Duffus’s friend, Claudette McLeish, who accompanied her to the hospital, said she was mortified to see the conditions under which the specimens were being kept and was equally baffled by the length of time it took the transport department to take them over to the Blood Bank.

“When we went down the corridor to the transport department we passed a table with all these boxes with regular bottles and plastic buckets, but we didn’t know these were specimens until when a man went to look through it for Tanya’s name,” McLeish said.

She said when she questioned him about the delay in taking the specimen to the lab, a stone’s throw away, he said his department had only received that specimen three days before from the operating theatre.

“A lot of these specimens were just sitting in the corridor in the open air and it would appear that some were even there long before then,” said McLeish.

Duffus, who was obviously traumatised by the experience, told the Observer that her specimen was in a closed bucket with her name on it. “I couldn’t even take it,” she said, adding that she saw other specimens in containers looking like paint buckets.

The specimens were still sitting in the corridor when the Observer visited the hospital late Friday afternoon.

Tanny Shirley, chairman of the South East Regional Health Authority, told the Observer that he has since requested an audit of the area to ensure that the proper protocol is observed as it relates to the storing of specimens.

He admitted that what the Observer saw were not the conditions under which specimens are to be kept. Instead, they are to be properly packaged and kept in styrofoam wrappers in a sterile place to which only authorised persons should have access.

“This is an unfortunate situation that will have to be dealt with,” he said.

Duffus said she eventually took the specimen and took it to a private lab, which charged her $20,000. The results are expected to be ready in two weeks. In addition, she is required to have another test done on the specimen in Miami, Florida since it could take several months for the results of the second test to be ready if it is done at the University Hospital of the West Indies.

The results from the test to be done in Miami should be ready in two-and-a-half weeks, she said.

But with the KPH not being able to give Duffus an earlier appointment than July, it is anyone’s guess how far advanced the cancer will be before she begins getting treatment or if she will still be alive then.

“By April we should get all the results, and so what will she do until July?” McLeish asked.

Duffus, she lamented, has no other option but to wait until then as she cannot afford private care.

A distraught Duffus said she first discovered a lump in her breast last July and later had a biopsy done at KPH on August 23. Those results confirming the dreadful news were also not available until nearly seven months later.

“When I just did the biopsy they said it would take about three weeks, but then I kept calling and even went there and it was still not ready,” she told the Observer, noting that she was always told that several persons were ahead of her.

In February she was finally called and given the grim news that an operation would have to be done to remove one of her breasts.

A few weeks later, she was admitted to the hospital and prepared for the surgery but that was cancelled at the very last minute.

“They had me on drip and got me ready for the surgery and while I was waiting on them to come the doctor came and said they have a cut-off time and they still had someone in surgery and so we have to just call it off,” she recalled.

She was sent home and given a later date in March following which the surgery was eventually done on March 3.

But Duffus said it was only when she was being discharged from the hospital a few days later that she was told that a specimen of the excised breast has to be sent for testing to determine what stage cancer she has before she can begin treatment.