"Like being hit by a bus": Husband of woman suing over alleged smear misdiagnosis reveals family's pain

The husband of a terminally ill woman who has sued over the alleged misinterpretation of her CervicalCheck smear test has told how their lives have been turned upside down since her cancer diagnosis.

‘My wife told me over the phone. I was in shock and I broke down. I will never forget that phonecall,’ he told a High Court judge of the cancer diagnosis a few days before Christmas 2015.

“That Christmas was a difficult time for all of us. We knew there was something big coming down the line,” he told Mr Justice Kevin Cross.

On the third day of the woman's action against laboratories and the HSE, her husband said the recurrence of her cancer two years later was "like being back in another big hole again."

When they got the news last year that the cancer was inoperable, her husband said "it was like being hit by a bus."

Earlier the legal team representing the mother of two yesterday opposed mediation talks while it said the HSE denies primary liability in the case.

Patrick Treacy SC for the mother of two said his side was opposed to it and he said it was incomprehensible to the woman and her husband how the HSE can deny primary liability.

Counsel said to spend days in mediation when the HSE are saying it has no primary liability is a “a fool’s errand” and it would put the mediation to nought.

The mother of two who is in her 40s now has Stage 4 cancer and has had palliative chemotherapy and her prognosis is between 12 months to 22 months. She cannot be identified by order of the court.Along with her husband, she has brought an action against the HSE and three laboratory companies including the one in Austin Texas which tested her smear slide in 2010 and reported it as negative.

Mr Justice Kevin Cross said he was reluctant to direct mediation take place when there was opposition to it, but he urged all sides to have discussions.

“I am not going to force you in to something you don’t want to do,” the judge added.

Eoin McCullough SC for the laboratories applied to the court for a direction that mediation take place this week.Patrick Hanratty SC for the HSE supported the application.

Mr Treacy said the woman’s prognosis is extremely serious and it was inhumane to delay her case.

Mediation he said had come on to the landscape on Monday.

The woman’s legal team he said who were experienced in this type of mediation, had a certain “jaundiced view” especially in CervicalCheck cases where the HSE do not accept primary liability.

Mr Treacy said he could not see how mediation will achieve anything that negotiation won’t. He pointed out that negotiation between the legal teams would also be much quicker and could go on in the background as the case continued.

The couple have sued the HSE along with two companies which provided medical diagnostic services in the State, Sonic Healthcare (Ireland) Ltd with registered offices at Sandyford Business Park, Dublin and Medlab Pathology Ltd with offices at Sandyford Business park, Dublin and US laboratory Clinical Pathology Laboratories Incorporated of Austin, Texas. It is claimed they all owed the woman a a duty of care in the provision of the cervical screening programme and in the provision of all services associated with it.

The woman on September 17, 2010 underwent a cervical smear test as part of the national cervical screening programme. Her sample was sent for review and a laboratory report showed the sample was satisfactory for assessment and there was no evidence of the presence of abnormal tissue.

It is claimed there was an alleged failure to correctly report and diagnose and there was an alleged misinterpretation of the woman's smear slide taken in 2010 and that her cancer was allowed to develop and spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in December 2015.

The claims are denied

The case before Mr Justice Kevin Cross continues tomorrow.