Apology over misdiagnosis welcomed

THE WOMAN who sparked a reconfiguration of the State’s cancer services after going public when her own breast cancer was misdiagnosed has welcomed a court apology by the Health Service Executive for the bungled handling of her case.

Rebecca O’Malley received the two-line apology in the High Court yesterday as part of a settlement of her case against the Health Service Executive (HSE), four years after she began proceedings. Speaking to The Irish Times after the court hearing, she criticised the State for fighting the case for so long when it had accepted a mistake had been made. While the HSE had acknowledged there was a misdiagnosis, it had argued up to now that this made no difference to her health, she said.

The 46-year-old Englishwoman said the time it took to take proceedings in misdiagnosis cases placed those involved under huge pressure.

She said she did not think she would ever recover from the experience, which started when her doctor noticed a lump on her left breast in March 2005.

A mammogram carried out at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick and a biopsy tested at a laboratory at Cork University Hospital were reported as normal. However, the biopsy had been misread and she was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

Almost 15 months had been lost and she had to have a mastectomy immediately.

The trauma of finding out she had cancer was compounded by errors made and the reluctance of officialdom to own up to them.

She said she was made to undertake “countless tests” for the proceedings before the HSE conceded liability, and suffered particular upset when the other side sought to re-examine the slides that were the basis of the original misdiagnosis of her breast cancer.

“Their attitude made me so angry and depressed,” she said. “I live each day with the tormenting thought that the delayed diagnosis of my breast cancer has reduced my chances of survival from nearly 80 per cent down to 56 per cent – little more than the flip of a coin.”

Her husband, Tony, said it seemed as though the HSE was clutching at straws. “It made their various statements of contrition seem very mealy-mouthed.”

Ms O’Malley’s campaigning led first to the setting up of an independent inquiry into misdiagnoses, which paid tribute to her “extraordinary efforts” to demonstrate the inadequacies of the system through her personal experience. A reorganisation of cancer services followed, which is credited with a significant improvement in the standard of care.

Mr O’Malley said the “uncaring, hugely expensive, stressful and time-consuming” system needed to be changed for other victims of misdiagnosis. Since the controversy, the O’Malleys have moved to England. She works part-time because she doesn’t feel up to a full-time career and wants more time with her children.