HSE accepts liability for wrongly giving breast cancer patient all-clear
These were the words of Rebecca O’Malley after her four-year legal battle to force the HSE to accept liability for what happened to her finally ended in success yesterday.
Speaking in the High Court after a public HSE apology for her mistreatment, which resulted in a serious breast cancer diagnosis delay and a resultant mastectomy, Ms O’Malley, a mother of three, revealed the private torment she and her family have faced.
She hit out at a defensive HSE legal policy that forced patients who may “not have sufficient strength or stamina to take on the might of a major public body”.
Ms O’Malley was at the centre of a national storm in May 2007.
Over the previous two years, Ms O’Malley, who at the time was living in Ballina, Co Tipperary, had been given a breast cancer all-clear 14 months before being told she was still suffering from the disease.
Her decision to go public led to an independent Health Information and Quality Authority investigation and, ultimately, a major overhaul of breast cancer diagnosis standards.
Yesterday, in the High Court, her senior counsel, Liam Reidy, told Ms Justice Mary Irvine a settlement had been reached with the HSE following mediation.
This included a public apology from the HSE, which said it wished “to acknowledge the fault in respect of the misdiagnosis of the plaintiff’s breast cancer in Mar 2005”.
Ms O’Malley had also sought damages relating to the misdiagnosis, as well as compensation for what she believed was a PR campaign conducted against her by the HSE after she went public.
Ms O’Malley was wrongly given the all-clear after a Mar 2005 breast biopsy at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, which was analysed at Cork University Hospital.
The error was not found until her GP referred her back to Limerick in 2006 over health concerns.
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