A woman who was awarded damages of €500,000 because a cervical smear test was wrongly interpreted has died at her home in Dublin.
Janet Donnelly (38), a mother of an eight-year-old girl from Cabra, died of cervical and lymph-node cancer yesterday.
Ms Donnelly had sued the Dublin Well Woman Centre Ltd and the Royal College of Surgeons, alleging in the High Court that there had been incorrect interpretation of the smear test of June 24th, 1999, and failure to detect the presence of significantly abnormal cells.
The court was told by counsel for the defence that no liability attached to the Well Woman Centre.
Ms Donnell had claimed that the defendants had falsely reassured her as to her state of health, thus causing delay in the treatment of her cancer, "such delay causing the development of a cancerous tumour needlessly endangering her life and allowing the cancer to spread".
It was claimed that failure to correctly interpret the June 1999 smear test not only delayed diagnosis of her condition by up to eight months but also prevented the complete eradication of the disease which, it was claimed, would have been possible in June 1999.
As a result of the delay, Ms Donnelly alleged, she developed cervical cancer and lymph-node cancer.
Last month, the High Court awarded her over €500,000í