Harney to meet husband of misdiagnosed cancer victim

THE MINISTER for Health has said she will meet the husband of a woman who died after her cancer was misdiagnosed at Ennis General Hospital.

Speaking yesterday, Mary Harney said a decision to carry out a widescale review at the hospital would be made “on the basis of expert advice”.

The call for a widescale review came from the family of Ann Moriarty (53), who died of breast cancer last April, just months after being told her chest X-rays taken at the Ennis hospital were normal, when this was not the case.

The X-rays had been performed in June and August last year after the mother of one, who was in remission from breast cancer having had a mastectomy at Dublin’s St James’s Hospital in 2005, presented feeling unwell.

Ms Harney said yesterday she would be listening to patients and their families as well as listening to the experts in the field.

“We can’t spend all our time reviewing, otherwise we would not be able to get on with the provision of services and improvement of services,” she said.

“On the other hand, where experts advise that reviews are necessary based on protocols that are in place in every other European country, then we have to make sure those protocols are advanced and pursued in Ireland.”

“Though thousands of X-rays or mammograms can be reviewed, generally speaking, very few errors are identified, but all of the patients being reviewed clearly are concerned during the process,” she said.

Ms Harney said the department had recently agreed protocols with the Faculty of Radiology in Ireland that would be used when errors are identified.

“When errors occur, as they do in every healthcare system, we’ve got to make sure that we minimise the capacity of those errors being repeated,” she said.

The Minister said Karl Henry, the husband of Ms Moriarty, had asked to see her and she had agreed to meet him and would be doing so next Wednesday. She had also spoken to Ms Moriarty’s sister. “The reason we’re implementing the new cancer control plan . . . is precisely because of what’s happened in places like Ennis,” she said.

“Just over a year ago we had over 30 hospitals in the country providing breast cancer services and that’s not safe . . . by the end of this year there will be eight hospitals providing breast cancer services and I think the sooner we arrive at that position the better.”

In a statement last night, Mr Henry said he welcomed the opportunity to tell his wife’s story to Ms Harney. “I will repeat my calls for a fully independent and thorough investigation into her case,” he said.

Mr Henry said the HSE had said the error rate of the radiologist at Ennis, who misread his wife’s chest X-ray, was within accepted standards.

He called for a copy of any analysis carried out on the radiologist’s error rates.