HSE defends cancer report omission
A review of the work of radiologist Dr James Murray, who worked in two north-eastern hospitals, uncovered mistakes made by other radiologists including one doctor who missed the same cancerous lesion on five occasions.
The final report, published last November, found that nine patients had their lung cancer diagnosis delayed by between five weeks to 14 months because of errors made by Dr Murray. Eight of the nine misdiagnosed patients have died.
Dr Murray, who had worked at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan from August 2006 to August 2007, was reported to the Medical Council after the review was published.
However, minutes of the meetings of the steering group carrying out the review, released under the Freedom of Information Act to irishhealth.com, reveal that other consultants missed lung abnormalities on some of the same patients whose cancer diagnosis was delayed.
The Health Service Executive has stressed that any discrepancies found in the review that reassessed chest X-rays and CT Scans from a total of 4,936 patients were noted and dealt with appropriately.
It is understood that the other missed abnormalities were not mentioned in the report because they were considered to be outside the review’s terms of reference and to avoid any further publication delay.
“Individual mistakes/ complaint/ errors incidentally encountered do not prompt look-back reviews, but are fully pursued in the HSE and any remedial action necessary is taken as a matter of routine.
“All appropriate procedures in relation to any other radiologists were followed as part of the review,” it said.
The health authority has also stressed that the margin of error in general radiology practice was between 2% and 20% and this was a worldwide phenomenon.
“Prior or subsequent contributory errors by others must always be allowed for in complex multidisciplinary diagnostic pathways that are a feature of lung cancer investigation,” it said.
