‘Someone has to be accountable for my wife’s death’
A MAN whose wife’s cervical cancer was missed despite two smear tests in 2011 and 2013 has said she went through ‘absolute hell’ in the last three years of her life.
Dubliner Ben Lawless told RTÉ News his wife Edel wasn’t diagnosed with cervical cancer until August 2014 and underwent extensive treatment before getting the all clear in April 2015.
However, the cancer returned and the mother of six died on their wedding anniversary last October. He said he was contacted by an official from the HSE in June, who told him that Edel was part of the scoping inquiry into why some women were falsely given all-clear smear test results.
The widower said he now wants someone to be accountable for what his partner went through. ‘They have to be accountable’, he said. ‘They’ve taken absolutely everything. She had six weeks of radiation five days a week and then chemotherapy one full day a week,’ he said, describing the treatment as ‘very hard on her’.
The Dublin man said that the couple had been ‘really happy’ when there was no recurrence of the cancer but added that she became very unwell again afterwards.
‘My wife slipped into a coma and never woke up. She passed away four days later […] on our wedding anniversary on the 31st of October,’ he said during the emotional interview.
‘I’m not a whole person anymore. I never thought I’d be a widower at 45.’
Mr Lawless said that he and many other men in his position ‘probably wouldn’t have done anything’ about the situation if Vicky Phelan had not gone public about her experience.
‘My wife went through absolute hell for the last three years of her life,’ he said.
Mr Lawless said he now wanted to know the ‘who, what, when and why’ of his wife’s treatment. The couple had six children together and Mr Lawless said that the family had been left ‘devastated’ by her death.
He described Edel as a ‘really good person’ who was ‘a bit wild’. ‘That’s what I loved about her,’ he added.