Joan is still waiting for an apology

AS 97 women face an anxious wait for the outcome of the surgical review that will confirm whether or not they actually have breast cancer, a woman who was one of nine whose misdiagnosis has been confirmed yesterday said she still has not received an apology from anyone.

Joan Kennedy who is 78 years old and from Co Offaly is now recovering from surgery two weeks ago when her breast had to be removed.

She said she still vividly remembers being told she had cancer despite getting the all-clear from Portlaoise General Hospital six months previously: “I was stunned. I did not know what to do. I said maybe I should have said to him that day that at my age and everything, what is the use in putting me through all this ordeal,” she said in an interview with RTÉ.

“I was flabbergasted and I wasn’t able to say such a thing to him.”

She said they did not explain either at Portlaoise or in Dublin how the error had happened.

“I got no explanation from anyone and there was no apology from anyone or counselling either.”

Ms Kennedy’s daughter Kay pointed the figure of blame at the current health system in this country. “Are there people up there in the Government that really care about the likes of my mother and all the other women around the country that are going through all this trauma at the moment?” she said. “Even the women who are still out there who do not know what their outcomes are going to be. The health service has just got to get to grips with it and stop messing. It has to think there are people out there and the worry, the trauma and the emotional stress that we have all been put through.”

Her son Donal Kennedy said: “It is about individual cases but it is also about women in general if they have to go for a mammogram.

“How can they be certain they are okay when they are told they are okay? That is what it is all about,” he said.