Emma set for talks as one more case settled
CERVICAL cancer victim Emma Mhic Mhathúna will go into crunch talks tomorrow in the hope of finally resolving her compensation action against the HSE, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
The 37-year-old mother-offive’s lawyers told a court last month of her ‘torment and anguish’ while the Health Service Executive refused to admit responsibility for her terminal illness since she first issued proceedings on May 24. She is suing over alleged smear test blunders that led to a delayed diagnosis of her terminal cervical cancer.
Despite Ms Mhic Mhathúna’s pleas, her case has still not been resolved. But it will go to mediation, starting this weekend in Dublin, and will be chaired by senior counsel Luan Ó Braonáin, the Mail has learned. If the talks fail, then her case will go to a full High Court trial before a judge sitting alone on June 29.
Her case is officially being handled by the State Claims Agency, which previously stated it was aiming to resolve such cases through mediation ‘in a sensitive manner as a matter of urgency and without the requirement for a court hearing’.
Meanwhile, another woman, who also has terminal cancer, settled her High Court compensation action over alleged smear test blunders yesterday. She cannot be named.
It is only the second case to reach an outcome since motherof-two Vicky Phelan, 43, settled her case for €2.5million in April. At least three other cases are still unresolved.
The women have all sued for compensation over alleged delays relating to the controversial Cervical-Check smears.
In the latest case, which came before the High Court anonymously yesterday, a woman and her husband brought an action over smear tests carried out in 2009 and 2012 which came back as ‘no abnormality detected’, RTÉ reported last night.
She claimed she was not told until May of this year that reviews of those tests showed the presence of pre-cancerous cells – and that the tests had allegedly been reported incorrectly. She was told in May of this year her cancer was incurable and her prognosis was limited to months. She claimed the delay in diagnosis meant she had lost the opportunity for any cure and her life expectancy had been impaired.
She sued the HSE and US-based laboratory Quest Diagnostics. Her proceedings were first issued last week and reached a quick settlement yesterday.
Last month, Ms Mhic Mhathúna’s lawyers pointed to assurances given by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Health Minister Simon Harris to the 209 women affected by the Cervical-Check controversy that ‘nobody would be forced to go to court if they didn’t wish to’.