‘Cancer won’t beat me,’ says Ruth after €2m court award

RUTH Morrissey, who was last week awarded €2.1million in damages by the High Court over the misreading of cervical smear tests, has said she will not let cancer defeat her.

Ms Morrissey revealed that she has been given two years to live by doctors but she does not accept this prognosis.

She told the Sunday With Miriam show, on RTÉ Radio One, that she is determined to fight the disease.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I have my bad days – there’s days where I don’t want to get out of the bed, where I want to curl up and say: “why did this happen to me, why me, why did you pick me, what did we do to deserve this?” and I still have those days,’ she said. ‘But the majority of my days are positive and they have to be, because you have to have that positive mind frame because if you don’t, then you’re giving up and you’re going to let it win, and by God I’m not going to let it win.’

Ms Morrissey said that although she responded well to treatment well last year, there are side effects which are affecting her ability to walk.

She said she is due to see her consultant next week to have a scan for an update on her health.

Asked how she stays positive after what she has had to go through, she said: ‘It takes a while to do it, it’s not like I jump up out of the bed in the morning. You’ve got to convince yourself it’s going to be a good day.’

She said she felt excited after winning the case, but that her main feeling was relief. She said most important thing to come from the case was that the labs involved were found to be accountable and to be negligible.

And she said that in future if there is any doubt over smear tests whatsoever they should be called negative.

‘If you’re unsure of what you’re looking at, then you can’t pass that as being positive, you have to call it negative, you know? If there is any doubt, then it should not be passed... because this is somebody’s life that you’re looking at.’