A woman with cervical cancer whose lawyers pleaded with the HSE to have her case over the alleged misreporting of her smear slides settled before her death has died, the High Court has heard.
Mr Justice Paul Coffey was told that the 59-year-old woman, who cannot be identified, died at the weekend.
A part of her case has now died with her as the HSE and laboratories involved refused a plea in the woman’s last days to have her right to general damages preserved after her death if her action was successful.
Her lawyers had pleaded with the HSE and laboratories involved to settle the case and made what they called "a humanitarian request" to also give an assurance that the woman’s right to general damages if her side went on to win the action be preserved after her death.
The woman’s case was due for trial in the High Court in July. All the claims made in the action are denied.
At one stage last week, Mr Justice Paul Coffey told the parties they now find themselves "at the edge of what the law can do" and it was now a case "where common decency and honour become involved."
As a result, mediation talks began in the case late last week, but the woman died before those talks were able to reach any resolution of the action.
In the High Court, counsel for the woman and her family, Jeremy Maher SC instructed by Cian O’Carroll solicitors, said mediation talks took place again last Friday, but it did not resolve the case and the woman later died.
He said the case was due to go ahead on July 5th and he asked the court to now vacate that date as the proceedings will have to be reconstituted. The action will have to be now brought by the woman’s grieving husband.
Mr Maher said the HSE and laboratories had been asked to preserve the woman’s right to general damages after her death, but "that was refused."
Mr Justice Paul Coffey, who adjourned the case, said he was "very, very saddened" to hear of the woman’s death and he conveyed his "deepest sympathy" to her husband and family.
The woman had sued the HSE along with laboratory Eurofins Biomnis Ireland Limited of Sandyford Industrial Estate, Foxrock, Dublin. The US laboratory CPL, which is based in Austin, Texas and which examined the woman’s August 2010 cervical smear slide, was added to the proceedings as a third party at the end of last month.
At issue in the case are two cervical smear slides taken under the CervicalCheck national screening programme in February 2010 and August 2010.
She had claimed that had smear samples taken in February 2010 or August 2010 been correctly reported she would have been treated by curative surgery and would not have developed invasive cervical cancer.
Instead, she said she underwent treatment with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and brachytherapy and in October 2022 she was diagnosed as having widespread metastatic disease.
It was claimed because of the alleged delay in diagnosis the woman allegedly lost the opportunity of cure and her life expectancy was severely impaired and limited to months rather than years.
All the claims were denied.
