A woman who went public this year over the misdiagnosis of her breast cancer has called for a thorough investigation into how such errors happened.
Rebecca O'Malley, from Ballina, Co Tipperary, was mistakenly given the all clear after she underwent a fine needle biopsy at Midwestern Regional Hospital, Limerick, in March 2005 to test for suspected breast cancer.
The sample was sent to a cytology laboratory in Cork University Hospital and was diagnosed as normal. However, 14 months later, Ms O'Malley's GP suggested a second biopsy which showed she did have cancer.
Ms O'Malley had a mastectomy and chemotherapy before it emerged that the first test did show malignancy. In an interview on RTÉ's Morning Irelandyesterday, she said an investigation into pathology services was necessary to ensure that a wrongful diagnosis did not happen again.
After the misdiagnosis of a patient at University College Hospital Galway earlier this week, Ms O'Malley said unless the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) examined the root cause of such mistakes, there would be a crisis of confidence in disease detection services.
She said that while an investigation into the State's pathology services should not be a witch-hunt designed to place blame on individual healthcare workers, there needed to be an improvement in procedures to ensure that those diagnosed with cancer were treated as early as possible.