Another 26 London Health Sciences Centre patients were treated with diluted chemotherapy, increasing the number of affected patients to 691, the hospital reported Friday.
Contrite hospital staff members are scrambling to contact all of them with the new information.
“At this time, we have attempted to call all 26 patients and sent letters as well, to express our sincere regret that they, too, are impacted,” said Neil Johnson, Vice President of Cancer Care for LHSC. “Now that we have done the best we can to first reach these patients, we wanted to disclose this added development publicly. Our focus continues to be on helping to connect the affected patients to the information and supports they need.”
The discovery comes following a second review at the hospital.
Many of the patients affected in the hospital’s first assessment learned of the news through the media.
Of the 691patients at LHSC, 40 were pediatric and 651 were adult.
The hospital estimated that 117 patients of the adults in this group have died. But it said their deaths cannot be directly attributed to the chemotherapy issue.
“It should be noted that the hospital cannot be 100 per cent certain of the number of deaths, since we are not always notified of deaths that may have occurred after treatment was concluded,” an LHSC statement said.
“We will continue to learn from and continuously refine our processes to ensure patients receive high quality care at every step of their journey.”
More than 1,100 patients in Ontario and New Brunswick were given the diluted chemotherapy.
