Hormone receptor scandal good example of bad PR: professor

ST. JOHN'S - The way Eastern Health disclosed information about hormone receptor testing errors is a model of how not to handle crisis communications, says a public relations instructor.

"It will take generations for people to recover their trust," said Trudie Richards, an associate professor at Mount Saint Vincent, a Halifax institution well known for its public relations program.

"You can work forever to build it, and destroy it in a second by behaving inappropriately," she said.

"It's a tragedy. We're talking about human life here, human health."

Trust has been damaged because public anger increased as the full disclosure of details was delayed.

Errors affecting breast cancer patients who were tested between 1997 and 2005 for hormone receptors in order to determine their treatment options, were discovered in 2005 and retests were ordered from Mount Sinai Hospital.

But some patients didn't find out for months or years about the retesting, let alone their new results.

The St. John's-based Cameron Inquiry was appointed to examine what happened before and after the errors were discovered.

"Even after the inquiry, people were still finding out. Just inexcusable," Richards said in a telephone interview with Transcontinental Media.

Evidence presented at the Cameron Inquiry paints a clear picture of a communications fiasco.

Eastern Health hemmed and hawed in the summer of 2005 about informing patients. Finally, the media beat Eastern Health to the punch in October 2005.

Eastern Health was in over its head trying to manage the communications debacle.

In August 2006, director of communications Susan Bonnell pleaded to an official from a national public relations firm she had met at a conference for advice because Eastern Health didn't have a crisis plan to deal with the faulty tests.

Bonnell, who has since moved to an internal communications role, compared the situation to an angry volcano continuously erupting.

Richards said too many organizations are caught without a crisis plan. Her most recent research found that more than 50 per cent don't have a strategy because they keep putting off its development.

Such a communications plan should be rooted in openness and honesty, she said.

"I can say that in this situation it's pretty clear the organization chose not to follow appropriate procedure," Richards said.

She said Eastern Health shouldn't have waited until it had test results back to let patients know about the situation. "There's cliché and it's terribly simplistic ... 'Tell it all and tell it fast.' Even in the absence of complete knowledge, if there's the slightest chance somebody might be affected, you tell them. You can use language like, 'Please do not be worried. We have no evidence at this time this directly involves you, but we did want to let you know we are working as quickly as we possibly can. And the group of people affected may include your name.'"

Apologizing and accepting of responsibility right off the top - such as was the case in the Maple Leaf Foods recalls and the listeriosis scandal - are essential, Richards said. Michael McCain, Maple Leaf's president and chief executive officer, was all over TV apologizing, right from the start. Eastern Health didn't apologize until the inquiry began this year. Apology letters were only sent to patients this summer.

Richards said the hormone receptor debacle has made the public legitimately mistrustful of the quality of medical service it receives.