A woman with terminal cancer who claimed her cervical smear slide was negligently misread has settled her legal action.
The case opened on Friday morning before the High Court, which heard the claims would be fully contested by the Health Service Executive (HSE), as operator of the national cervical screening programme, Medlab Pathology Limited, which was contracted to test smear samples, and a pathologist.
The HSE had admitted to a breach of duty only in respect of a delay in relaying to the plaintiff the result of an internal audit of her smear test, which had been conducted after her cancer had been diagnosed, the court heard.
This internal review was claimed to have reclassified her 2015 smear test from a negative result to one showing atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance.
The confidential settlement reached in the afternoon with the HSE and MedLab Pathology, with offices in Dublin’s Sandyford Business Park, was without any admission of liability in relation to the other claims, while the case against the third defendant was struck out. The plaintiff was to be awarded her costs.
A separate pending action taken by the woman’s husband for alleged nervous shock due to the same alleged circumstances was also struck out with an order made for his legal costs.
'Very sad and difficult case'
Earlier, the woman’s counsel, Oonah McCrann SC, instructed by Callan Tansey solicitors, said the cancer diagnosis and treatment attempts have had a “devastating” impact on the woman’s mental and physical health.
Ms McCrann told the court that the mother-of-four was forced to endure radical radiation therapy with chemotherapy. Despite these efforts, the woman, who is in her early 40s, now has a terminal diagnosis and is receiving palliative treatment.
Counsel said the woman worries she will not get to see her children, the youngest of whom is still in primary school, grow up.
The court had heard that the woman had a routine smear test as part of the CervicalCheck screening programme which returned a normal result in May 2015. She was subsequently diagnosed with cervical cancer in April 2017 after attending a hospital emergency department with bleeding and extreme tiredness.
In her action she had claimed that, on the balance of probabilities, if her May 2015 smear test been properly reported and if she had at that point been referred to colposcopy or been advised to undergo more interval smear tests or other investigations, she would have had an earlier pre-cancer diagnosis, which would have been treated and not have developed into cancer.
The woman came to court with her husband and was visibly emotional as she watched the proceedings from her wheelchair.
Mr Justice Paul Coffey said he was pleased to hear that a settlement had been reached in what was a “very sad and difficult case”. He conveyed his best wishes the woman and her family.
