The publication of a report into the misdiagnosis of breast cancer patient Rebecca O'Malley has been delayed for a third time in as many months, it was confirmed yesterday.
Ms O'Malley said it was extremely frustrating that the report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) will not be published before the end of March for legal reasons.
"It really makes me despair that any recommendations within the report into my case still cannot be implemented," she said.
The 42-year-old mother of three from Ballina, Co Tipperary, said she strongly suspects the delay relates to threats or demands that are being made to HIQA by or on behalf of persons employed within one or more of the hospitals at the centre of the independent investigation "in an effort to delay, derail or ultimately kill the report".
"If my suspicions are true, then it is revealing and very regretful that certain people appear more concerned about their own reputations than they are about the need to urgently introduce critical changes to a clearly flawed system in an effort to protect and save the lives of women who continue to remain at risk of breast cancer misdiagnosis and death," she said.
"The longer the delay in publishing and implementing the recommendations in this report, the greater the risk of further misdiagnosis, and it really disturbs me that the right of the Irish public to expect and receive a safer standard of care and treatment in our hospitals now has to play second fiddle to certain vested interests within the health services," she added.
She called for an urgent debate about competing constitutional rights in the Republic. "Should the right of a few doctors or health service managers to the constitutional protection of their good name outweigh the right of many thousands of hospital patients to the constitutional protection of their bodily integrity - the right to not have their health damaged by the State? In my own view a suitable balance can be achieved," she said.
It emerged last May that Ms O'Malley had her breast cancer diagnosis delayed for 14 months after an error was made in the laboratory at Cork University Hospital. She had been attending the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, which sent her samples to Cork for analysis.
HIQA was asked to investigate and its report was initially due to be published on December 17th but it was deferred until January when new information emerged. In January HIQA said the report would be finalised and made public at the end of this month. Yesterday it emerged it will not be published until late March, at the earliest, for legal reasons.
Separately, the publication of a report into the misdiagnosis of nine women with breast cancer at Portlaoise hospital, which was completed last year, has also still not been published for legal reasons.