Misdiagnosing Pathologist Had Cataracts
A doctor may have misdiagnosed patients in southern Ontario partly because she had cataracts that blurred her vision, a newly released document suggests.
Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor, Ont., apparently caught four of the errors attributed to pathologist Dr. Olive Williams before any harm was done, but two patients were not so lucky, according to an internal report by regional health officials.
The fifth patient underwent an unnecessary colostomy due to an incorrect cancer diagnosis, while the sixth patient received an incorrect lumpectomy, it said.
“The error has been attributed to some extent to a physical issue with the pathologist — that is presence of cataracts,” the report states.
Williams, whose hospital privileges were suspended in January, had been on staff since 2004 and also did work for other hospitals in the area. She couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.
The report from February also suggests the hospital was unwilling to reveal what it found were the errors made by Williams to the public until it knew the “full scope” of the problem.
“The hospital would like to review sample charts before going public in order to determine the magnitude of this issue and not alarm the public,” the report states.
The Erie St. Clair local health integration unit (LHIN), which oversees hospitals in the Windsor area, put out the report after it was released through freedom of information laws.
The document was dated Feb. 16, the same day a local Windsor television station was planning to air a story about Windsor surgeon Dr. Barbara Heartwell performing an unnecessary mastectomy on a patient.
