BC Cancer Agency Sets Up Patient Hotline in Katakkar Case
Friday, July 6, 2012 @ 5:06 PM
Prince George, B.C.- The B.C. Cancer Agency has set up a special hotline for former patients of Dr. Suresh Katakkar.
Dr. Katakkar resigned from his post as Medical Oncologist with the yet to open Northern Cancer Centre in mid June, shortly after the BC Cancer Agency started a review of his patient files.
He was suspended with pay in late May. The review was started after the B.C. Cancer Agency received concerns about his practice. Although the BC Cancer Agency will not confirm it, the concerns are said to involved Dr. Katakkar’s use of an unapproved therapy for a patient and the statement issued this afternoon by the BC Cancer Agency’s interim President Brian Schmidt, outlines the protocol for treatments that are outside the approved norms . “There is a process in place when an oncologist feels there is need to provide a treatment that deviates from the recommended protocol. The Agency’s oncologists are required to follow this process. To prevent undue patient harm approval of changes to the recommended treatment plan must be provided by the BC Cancer Agency, as well as an Ethics Review Board to conduct any non-standard treatment. Any unauthorized deviation from these standards of care would be of great concern and the BC Cancer Agency would take immediate action to investigate” reads the statement.
The statement goes on to say “If the Agency becomes aware, through its investigation that patient care or safety was affected, those affected patients will be contacted. The BC Cancer Agency is working to ensure that Dr. Katakkar’s former patients are followed up with appropriately. Those patients have been or are being reassigned to a new oncologist who will review their charts and recommend how to best continue their course of treatment, which could include maintaining their current treatment plan or other recommendations.”
The special hotline for former patients of Dr. Katakkar, who have concerns or questions about their treatment is:
1-800-663-3333 ext. 6292.
Comments
I have no knowledge of any of the details of this situation, but if this is about Chelation, it’s time for a showdown.
If this is the elephant in the room, let’s acknowledge there is an elephant in the room. My aunt would have lost her legs had it not been for Chelation. Conventional medicine suggested to buck her legs off as their solution.
I agree. WIth all the news this story is getting the BC Cancer Agency would be better suited to say what the unauthorized therapy was. Its not like the Dr was making them drink horse urine or something…..I hope…
We have more and more people suffering from the disease called cancer. We are expanding cancer clinics. We are continually increasing the awareness of cancer and our support of cancer by Jump-a-thons, Run-a-thons, Walk-a-thons etc. etc. and we have not made any headway in reducing the number of deaths from cancer, or deaths from the treatment for cancer.
“I said deaths from the treatment for cancer!” Oh, yes, the claims from the medical professionals say she is cancer free. Whoop-de-doo. What if you die from the side effects of the treatment? Oh well, at least she didn’t die from cancer they say. Some comfort! And how do they record the stats? Right. Another success story.
Is this a sensitive subject. You damn right. And what does our current Medical profession suggest as their standard forms of treatment for cancer? Radiation and Chemo. Wow, that’s some progress.
Cancer is big business. A cure is not to be had from our current medical Profession. You can take that to the bank.
CBC Radio One 91.5 had a more in-detail report on this unfortunate happening. I shall not repeat what was said. The good doctor has a lot of support.
As an aside: It’s the same B.C. Cancer Agency which still can/will not understand that a lot of local people are very concerned about the potentially dangerous practice (in Prince George!!!) to medicate everyone’s tap water with a poisonous effluent from the superphosphate industry. The stuff is called hydrofluorosilicic acid fluoride. It also contains traces of mercury, lead, and arsenic.
Toothpaste and dental treatments at the dentists office use a pharmaceutical grade fluoride, but even then one is urged never to swallow!
But, we must swallow our intentionally fluoridated city water from the tap and we bathe with it. It goes straight to all the internal organs.
Well, there you have it!
Clean air, clean food and, yes, clean water would be a good start to try to reduce the incidents of cancer, in my opinion!
The fertilizer industry removes the fluoride from the phosphate fertilizer because a fertilizer with fluoride in it would kill the plants instead of making them grow.
That does make a lot of sense, but putting it in tap water not so much.
…suspended with pay…”. Who knew? I thought only the RCMP get to be so lucky.
I totally agree with you Prince GEorge!
While what the doctor did was nice, and seems like the right thing to do, he broke the rules.
As head of the oncology department of a new cancer clinic, he had to know what he was doing was wrong. He also had to know the proper procedures to get permission to do what he wanted to do, or how to refer his patients to a jurisdiction that could provide the treatment.
To do this on more than one occasion, and to be reported by coworkers, leads me to believe that while his heart was in the right place, he was not the person that should be left in charge of running the new cancer clinic.
Posted by: PrinceGeorge on July 6 2012 8:16 PM
CBC Radio One 91.5 had a more in-detail report on this unfortunate happening. I shall not repeat what was said. The good doctor has a lot of support.
As an aside: It’s the same B.C. Cancer Agency which still can/will not understand that a lot of local people are very concerned about the potentially dangerous practice (in Prince George!!!) to medicate everyone’s tap water with a poisonous effluent from the superphosphate industry. The stuff is called hydrofluorosilicic acid fluoride. It also contains traces of mercury, lead, and arsenic.
Toothpaste and dental treatments at the dentists office use a pharmaceutical grade fluoride, but even then one is urged never to swallow!
But, we must swallow our intentionally fluoridated city water from the tap and we bathe with it. It goes straight to all the internal organs.
Well, there you have it!
Clean air, clean food and, yes, clean water would be a good start to try to reduce the incidents of cancer, in my opinion!
Why not repeat what the cbc said?
Just put CBC and Katakkar into a search engine and you can read the story dealing with Jay Hill and his daughter.
Jales4 wrote: “As head of the oncology department of a new cancer clinic, he had to know what he was doing was wrong.”
Wrong for whom? The patient, or the Cancer Agency? The doctor’s oath is taken with respect to patients, not any agency. He had a catch 22 situation and, in my opinion, and it seems the family’s from the CBC report, he made the ethical decision and thus the right decision. Patient first, then Agency …… should be a simple enough decision, even though it cost him his job.
I hope he has some grounds to sue, but likely does not. However, the family does have that right.
I think this should be a battle between the BCMA and the Cancer Agency.
So, if I should get cancer, I will have to understand that if I stay in Canada for treatment, I will actually be indirectly treated by an Agency, not the Oncologist who is a mere technician and cannot use the information gathered through his/her continuous improvement studies.
“Why not repeat what the cbc said?” The CBC report has already changed again. It’s now about a vaccine. In this particular sad story the last thing I wanted to do is being even unintentionally disrespectful to anyone by spreading news which later proves inaccurate.
Actually your point about the oncologist just being a mere technician is a very good one!
Was he doing anything wrong? I was always under the impression that my donated dollars are mostly dedicated to finding new ways to cure and prevent cancer – surely new cancer treatments and new cancer drugs are often tested on terminal cancer patients, with their permission and at their request, patients for whom all available standard options had been used?
Wouldn’t it be inhumane and in violation of the very oath doctors take (to preserve life) if they would withhold a new unconvential treatment which has already been tried and which has been effective in some rare instances?
How will there be any progress? It’s the same with the fluoridation issue. 98% of B.C. does not do it anymore or has never done it – why is there no progress in our area here which represents the last 2% who are still being subjected to fluoridation?
How deeply rooted is this attitude to cling to something – stubbornly – which has no actual proven benefits and a lot of proven harmful side effects?
WHY IS THIS FLOURIDE STILL IN OUR WATER….NO WONDER PEOPLE ARE LEAVING THIS CITY!!!!!!
Priince Geore … lest people have the wrong understanding of what a vaccine is and how this vaccine was formulated, this vaccine was allegedly made from the patient’s body fluid.
The report goes on to allege that the patient eventually died from an infection in her blood stream related to her ongoing chemotherapy. So, that brings out Chester’s opinion which I happen to agree with. But, according to the statistical data, it is sometimes the best we have.
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