Man claims hospital failed to find cancer

HSE settles case over terminally ill patient’s CT scan

A YOUNG man with terminal pancreatic cancer has claimed that Cork University Hospital failed to diagnose him before the cancer spread.

Ben McGuire, a 33-year-old credit union clerk, has been told that he may have just months to live.

Mr McGuire settled his action against the HSE yesterday on confidential terms, with the High Court told that the HSE was not admitting any liability.

In his statement of claim issued by solicitor Michael Boylan, Mr McGuire, from Strawhall, Fermoy, Co. Cork, said he attended the hospital’s emergency department on November 2, 2017, with a pain in his left flank which he said had occurred intermittently since that summer.

A CT scan was performed of his kidneys, ureter, bladder and pancreas, which was reported as being normal, the court heard. He was discharged from hospital.

His abdominal pain continued, and he sought a further CT scan in a Lithuanian hospital, having been given the name of a consultant there by a work colleague.

The scan in February last year reported a pancreatic tumour, which was subsequently diagnosed as cancerous.

This was confirmed by the Mercy University Hospital when he returned from Lithuania, and he began a course of chemotherapy at Cork University Hospital.

Mr McGuire sued the HSE, claiming that Cork University Hospital failed to diagnose the pancreatic tumour from the CT scans it had carried out.

He said it had failed to identify and report on the mass, which measured 4cm by 5cm at the time.

He claimed it had failed to both take adequate care and to carry out further investigations of his long-standing flank pain.

He alleged they had failed to treat the tumour at a stage before it became further enlarged, and before a separate mass in his peritoneum – the lining of the abdomen – had developed.

This, he claimed, denied him the opportunity of receiving treatment before the cancerous tumour began to spread to other areas of his body.

The legal papers stated that his prognosis was uncertain but limited, and that the spread of the tumour had reduced the prospect of successful treatment.

The HSE denied negligence. In its defence, the HSE admitted that the November 2017 scan had been reported as normal.

But it said the scan was a noncontrast CT, performed specifically to look for kidney or ureteric stones, and that it was not negligent for the tumour not to have been reported when no suspicion of such a tumour had been raised.

It said a non-contrast CT was not a recognised method for diagnosing pancreatic cancer, and that the scans in Cork were not comparable to the scans taken in Lithuania.

It also argued that the tumour was subtle and did not have ancillary signs associated with a pancreatic tumour.

The HSE also did not admit that an earlier diagnosis in November 2017 would have made any difference to Mr McGuire’s ultimate outcome or prognosis.