Woman settles case over cancer treatment

A GALWAY woman has settled her High Court action against the HSE over an alleged litany of failures over many years at University College Hospital, Galway, to diagnose and treat her breast cancer despite her having had a series of mammograms over years at the hospital.

As a result of the alleged failures from 1993 up to 2007, Camilla Freehill, aged 65, with an address at Ballinasloe, claimed her breast cancer became well established and she had had to undergo a masectomy urgently in October 2007.

The masectomy was followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy and Ms Freehill suffered other medical problems following those treatments, including infections and a severe allergic reaction to certain drugs, it was claimed.

She had had to be treated in various hospitals throughout 2007 and 2008, had suffered excruciating pain and her hearing had been adversely affected, it was also claimed.

The case was listed for hearing yesterday before Mr Justice John Quirke who was told late yesterday afternoon by Bruce Antoniotti SC, for Ms Freehill, it had been settled.

The settlement involves no admission of liability and includes an undertaking by the HSE to pay for future reconstructive surgery on a private basis.

The HSE had admitted failure to properly diagnose and treat Ms Freehill from the date of a mammography examination of her in 2000 until a further mammography in 2007, when her breast cancer was diagnosed.

However, it denied negligence in the treatment of Ms Freehill prior to 2000 and also denied the deterioration in her condition arose from the delay in diagnosis and treatment of it.

Ms Freehill had claimed the hospital wrongly assumed an abnormality in a mammogram in 2002 was probably a scar related to previous surgery when, she claims, it had failed to ask her whether she had had surgery.

On October 4, 2007, a further mammogram was carried out which revealed Ms Freehill had well-established cancer in her right breast and lymph nodes, it was claimed.

The alleged failure of the hospital to properly interpret and recognise the findings of various earlier mammograms carried out over years on Ms Freehill would have lead to an earlier diagnosis of her condition and she would not have required the radical surgery she later underwent, it was claimed.