Apology for patient told she had cancer

THE Mater Hospital has apologised to the mother of a patients’ rights campaigner after she was incorrectly told she needed her stomach removed due to cancer.

In a meeting with the Byrne family last week, hospital management admitted a pathology mistake was made and assured them they would take steps to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.

For nearly eight months, 75-year-old Kathleen Byrne had been led to believe she had the illness. Doctors at the Dublin hospital told her of the diagnosis last October, saying they wanted to carry out a gastrectomy (surgical removal of all or part of the stomach) immediately — before the results of a second biopsy.