Anguish of the mother sentenced to death... by a smear test blunder
A MOTHER-OF-TWO with only months left to live has spoken of her anger after a routine smear test allegedly failed to spot her cancer, a court has heard.
Vicky Phelan, 43, only learned six years after a test gave her the all-clear that she had then been showing signs of cancer, the High Court was told.
‘I’m extremely angry,’ Mrs Phelan told the court, adding that she felt there had since been ‘a coverup’. ‘They are waiting for me to die, for this to go away,’ she said.
The Cervical Check smear test was carried out in May 2011. After another test in June 2014, she learned she had cervical cancer and underwent treatment. At around the time of that diagnosis, the HSE and the contractor lab carried out a review of Mrs Phelan’s case and discovered that the 2011 test had shown the presence of ‘plentiful abnormal cells’.
However, it wasn’t until September 2017 that she was told of the 2011 error. In November, Mrs Phelan was told that the cervical cancer had returned, and in January, she was told that she had 12 months to live.
Mrs Phelan underwent radical chemoradiotherapy after her 2014 diagnosis, but was told in January this year that her cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, and that it was now terminal.
Her counsel, Jeremy Maher SC, said if the pre-cancerous cells had been correctly spotted in 2011, and the appropriate minor treatment carried out, she would have had less than 1% of a chance of developing an invasive cancer.
‘Vicky Phelan would not, therefore, have developed an invasive cancer. She would not have required chemo and radiotherapy. She likely would have survived to her early or mid-80s,’ he said. ‘Instead, she will die, as a matter of medical evidence, before the end of the year.’
He said she and her husband Jim, from Annacotty, Co. Limerick, had two children – a 12-yearold daughter, and seven-year-old son, and that her cancer had caused them all great distress.
Mrs Phelan works as a manager of the Literacy Development Centre at Waterford Institute of Technology.
Mrs Phelan, and her husband, a carpenter, have sued the HSE, as operators of the cervical screening programme, and Clinical Pathology Laboratories Inc. in Austin, Texas, USA, which carried out the analysis and allegedly wrongly gave the all-clear.
The plaintiff’s expert will say there were ‘plentiful abnormal cells’ which should have been detected, counsel said.
She said of her cancer resurfacing in 2017 after the 2014 round of treatment: ‘I always knew it would come back. But I always thought it would be treatable. I didn’t think it would come to this... it’s very hard to live with.’
Doctors at Limerick Hospital told her in January this year that she had 12 months to live, or six months if she did not have palliative chemotherapy.
‘She [the doctor] was very blunt. Extremely so. I found her to be very negative. There was no hope from her whatsoever. She told me to go home and get my affairs in order as soon as possible,’ Mrs Phelan said. ‘She told me there was no option but palliative chemo. I didn’t accept that. I was absolutely devastated.’
Mrs Phelan said she had sought a second opinion from St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin, and this week she started taking a different immunotherapy drug. The best scenario for this was ‘more time’, she told the court.
She said she was also trying to get onto a trial in the US which could be curative, at an estimated cost of $250,000. This did not include accommodation, and if she got sick it would cost another $100,000 a week.
Asked about what she had been through, she said: ‘I’m angry, extremely angry. If I had been diagnosed back in 2011, on that particular smear, I probably would have had a Lletz procedure [to remove pre-cancerous cells] or at the worst a hysterectomy, which would be much more manageable compared to what I have to deal with now.’
She said the treatment she had undergone had been extremely difficult physically and emotionally, and that it had taken a toll on her family and her marriage.
Of the delay in telling her about the mistake, she said: ‘My first thought was, it’s a cover-up. Why didn’t they tell me sooner?
‘Cervical cancer is not curable. My reaction was, are they waiting for me to die, for this to go away?’
Looking to the future, she said her concern was for her children.
She said: ‘I want them to be provided for, because I am the main breadwinner in our household and if I’m gone that’s gone, that security. If I die I want to make sure they are provided for.’
Mr Maher said that Mrs Phelan was seeking aggravated and exemplary damages, because neither defendant had told her – until the time of her terminal diagnosis – that a review had been done by Cervical Check of her 2011 smear, and that it was known in 2014 that the original result was incorrect.
Mr Maher said there had been a ‘complete absence of candour’ by both parties. ‘It’s perfectly clear both defendants were aware that a very serious mistake had been made,’ he said.
Both defendants are opposing the Phelans’ claim for damages.
The case continues.
If the pre-cancerous cells had been spotted in 2011 Vicky Phelan would not ‘have developed an invasive cancer. She would not have required chemo and radiotherapy. She likely would have survived to her early or mid-80s’ Jeremy Maher, counsel for Vicky Phelan, speaking in court yesterday