‘Mammy, please don’t die,’ child tells terminally ill mother

The husband of a Limerick woman who has cancer, and is suing over alleged misinterpretation of her cervical smears, broke down while telling the High Court his daughter has asked her mother not to die.

"You hear her at bed time say: 'Mammy, please don't die, I love you, don't leave me.' It is devastating," Paul Morrissey said on the second day of the couple's action over two cervical smears taken under the CervicalCheck screening programme in 2009 and 2012.

Mr Morrissey's wife, Ruth, who has cervical and breast cancer, sobbed as her husband gave his evidence on Thursday. Mr Morrissey said he and his wife do everything together.

“She is not only my wife – she is my best friend.”

He said his wife had been given a death sentence and he feels anxious and completely stressed all the time. He is going to lose his wife, whom he met when he was aged 19 and she was 17.

“My wife should not be in this situation where she has to face this battle. She is beautiful inside and outside.”

Media and publicity

He said, but for the media and publicity around CervicalCheck smears, they would not have found out what happened.

“I am devastated to think Ruth is not going to see her daughter make her Communion, Confirmation and marry – it is soul destroying and heartbreaking.”

He said it was terrible to hear from her treating gynaecologist this year that he knew in 2016 of the reviews of the cervical smears two years earlier but had not told them.

“He said, ‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell you’ and he apologised.”

Mr Morrissey described the scene at the Cork hospital where, in early May, he and his wife waited after being called to an appointment with her gynaecologist, Dr Matt Hewitt.

There was another family present, waiting to hear, like Ruth, a 37-year-old mother from Limerick with terminal cancer, about not being told about the incorrect reporting of smear tests.

“We knew they were in for the same reason,” Mr Morrissey told the High Court.

The lady opposite was clearly upset; she had a tear in her eye, he said.

“We just sat there. It was one of those kinds of silences. You see another family leave and that family went in,” he said.

The couple, of Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen, Co Limerick, have sued the HSE and US laboratory Quest Diagnostics Ireland Ltd with offices at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin, along with Medlab Pathology Ltd, with offices at Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18.

Untreated

It is claimed there was failure to correctly report and diagnose and misinterpretation of her smear samples taken in 2009 and 2012.

A situation developed, it is claimed, where Ms Morrissey’s cancer spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014.

The court previously heard liability for causation is strongly disputed in the case.

The HSE has admitted it owed a duty of care to Ms Morrissey but not to her husband and also says the results of her smear reviews should have been made known to Ms Morrissey.

The laboratories deny all claims.

Ms Morrissey suffered a recurrence of her cervical cancer this year and was also diagnosed with breast cancer.

In evidence Mr Morrisssey said his wife has been given a death sentence and his trust in doctors was gone.

Earlier Ms Morrissey told the court she was not frightened to die, but she did not want to die. Ms Morrissey, who the court has been told may only have between one to two years to live, said the news of her prognosis was devastating.

“You have to dig really deep. You are not going to be the same person. I am not frightened to die, but I don’t want to,” she said in evidence.

She said when they met her gynaecologist this year and he told them of the review results he got in 2016, she said he told her he had told some patients but he did not tell her.

‘Taken aback’

She told Ms Justice Kevin Cross she was surprised to be told by Dr Hewitt that one smear was misinterpreted but "taken aback" that there was two.

“He just apologised that he forgot to tell me,” she said. Asked whether the doctor told her whether he was supposed to tell her, she said: “He said he told some patients but he didn’t tell me.”

Another oncologist, she said, was also aware of the 2014 audit and also did not tell her.

The couple told her counsel Jeremy Maher SC they believed they would never have found out about the smears had it not been for Vicky Phelan’s case, the media and the publicity.

Trust

“The trust has gone,” said Mr Morrissey of the couple’s faith in doctors.

Now the couple and their seven-year-old daughter are dealing with her having just months to live.

She said she has pain and wakes up at night and checks on her husband and daughter.

The pain is so bad that she had to walk up the stairs at her home on her hands and knees. She cannot sleep properly and her memory has been affected.

She sees friends extending their families and having more children.

“That is taken from me,” she said.

The case continues today.