A MOTHER-OF-TWO said she was treated like a “guinea pig” by the health system after being prescribed a painkiller that left her seriously ill.

THE family of an elderly widow who died of liver failure caused by a recently banned painkiller backed calls yesterday for improved reporting of the dangerous side-effects of drugs to the country’s medicines watchdog.

A COMMON drug used in Ireland to ease arthritis pain was linked yesterday to acute liver failure in an elderly widow who died last year.