‘Kept in dark about cancer for two years’
A GRANDMOTHER was not told she had cancer for two years after it was first recorded, the High Court has heard.
Eva Lewis, 65, died in October 2013, after what her counsel called a ‘miserable’ eight months of treatment which came too late.
Dr John O’Mahony SC, for the family of Mrs Lewis, said she had been operated on at the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork for gallstones in April 2011.
He said a histopathology report based on a specimen taken from the gall bladder indicated there was a carcinoma – or cancer – of the gall bladder. This was recorded in a report made six days after the operation, he said.
‘It laid fallow on the file, and unfortunately was not noted or acted upon,’ counsel said. ‘As a consequence... [Mrs Lewis] continued on for the next few years as if nothing was wrong. She should have been diagnosed and afforded the proper treatment in April 2011.’
Counsel said she presented to her GP in early 2013 complaining of pain in her abdomen. He said she was referred to a specialist and a metastatic carcinoma was found – ‘in other words, the cancer had spread significantly’. He said Mrs Lewis, from White’s Cross, Co. Cork, was treated with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but died in October 2013.
Mr Justice Kevin Cross asked what the outcome would have been for Mrs Lewis if the cancer had been acted upon in 2011.
Counsel said: ‘She would have lived longer, and her quality of life would have been considerably better... She was operated on but it was much too late.’
Dr O’Mahony said a fatal injuries case had been settled against Seán Brennan, the consultant surgeon from The Cork Clinic, Western Road, Cork, who was in charge of the 2011 gallstones operation. This, and personal injury claims for nervous shock due to Mrs Lewis’s untimely death, were settled for €160,000 in compensation, he said, without any admission of liability by the defendant. The actions were taken by Mrs Lewis’s husband Patrick, and by their three daughters, Patricia Lewis, Olive Burke and Yvonne Lewis.