Harney confirms Noonan claim over misdiagnosis of cancer patient

MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney has confirmed claims made earlier this week by Fine Gael TD and former health minister Michael…

MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney has confirmed claims made earlier this week by Fine Gael TD and former health minister Michael Noonan that another woman with cancer in the midwest was misdiagnosed.

In a detailed letter to Mr Noonan yesterday, Ms Harney confirmed that a cervical smear taken from the woman in 2006 and sent to the laboratory at University College Hospital in Galway for analysis had been incorrectly interpreted.

The woman in question, who wishes to remain anonymous, is now seriously ill with cancer.

Mr Noonan raised the case in the Dáil on Wednesday as he said he had written a number of weeks earlier to Ms Harney and HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm about it, but received no response.

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The Limerick East TD said yesterday that the letter from Ms Harney now confirmed the information he had given to the Dáil.

“I have forwarded the reply to the family and hope to speak to them over the weekend,” he said.

“I am awaiting the family’s instructions on how to proceed.”

The case follows two others in the past couple of weeks in which women with breast cancer who attended Ennis General Hospital were either misdiagnosed or not followed up properly. The two women – Ann Moriarty (53) and Edel Kelly (26) – died earlier this year.

Prof Drumm has warned other cases of misdiagnosis may come to light, including another at Ennis hospital.

Meanwhile, a list of all the serious patient safety incidents that the HSE is reviewing was handed over to the Department of Health in February this year. The department passed this list on to the Health Information and Quality Authority yesterday.

It is understood it may have been only passed to the authority now because the authority was about to investigate services at Ennis, and there may be other patient safety incidents at the hospital included on the list.

Meanwhile, it was confirmed yesterday the HSE is now investigating claims by a 28-year-old Limerick woman that there was a nine-month delay in detecting her cancer at Limerick Regional Hospital.

Susan Kerwin, a mother of two from Fedamore, said she visited the hospital a number of times in 2006 with severe bleeding, but the fact that she had a tumour in her womb was not picked up until last year.

She has had to have a hysterectomy and undergo radiotherapy.