‘My partner’s test was misread, now we can have kids only by surrogacy’

Email sent to Ray Darcy’s RTE radio show gives heart-wrenching details of one woman’s ordeal after her cancer diagnosis was missed

‘LIKE everyone in the country, I am appalled with the cervical cancer crisis. Unfortunately, my beautiful partner is one of the 208 women that had a missed diagnosis after two routine smears in 2011 and 2015. When she was not feeling well in 2012 – one year after her 2011 routine smear – she presented to her GP with some symptoms of cervical cancer. The doctor told her not to worry as her “smear was normal and there is nothing to worry about”.

In 2015, her routine smear was also read as normal. One year later, she again presented to her GP with symptoms and was shortly afterwards diagnosed with stage 2B cancer requiring intense radiation chemotherapy. She responded well to treatment, thank God. When her smears by CervicalCheck were reviewed as part of an audit when women get invasive cervical cancer, both routine smears from 2011 and 2015 were seen to have abnormal cells.

It took the hospital over a year before she was told of the misread smears. She was invited to the hospital by herself a year after her treatment finished to meet her gynaecologist who told her there was an audit of her smears. She was not told by the hospital she was undergoing an ‘open disclosure process’. The language used suggested ‘she was unlucky to find herself in this position’. CervicalCheck was not forthcoming that something went wrong or someone made a mistake. She cried in the car on the way home.

In terms of her recovery, she has not worked for the last two years. Her dream of having kids has now been dramatically reduced as the radiation destroyed all her ovaries and eggs. Our chances of having kids is now only through surrogacy. I’m so proud of her and all I want is her to be well, I worry about her every minute.

I’m angry that this has happened even though she did everything right. She got her routine smears and went to her GP with symptoms.

I am really disappointed the HSE or CervicalCheck did not contact her this week as her file would suggest she went through the disclosure process and informed of the misread smear. They should have called her to see if she has any questions and to get an apology of sorts.

When I then tried to meet CervicalCheck after she was told of the audit, the senior gynaecologist did not come into the meeting as they knew I would ask the hard questions. That was six months ago. When I met a clinical nurse with my partner, I asked her is CervicalCheck worried about the results in terms of other women being impacted and would they re-test the smears. She avoided all the important questions we had.

My advice is to trust your hunch and to trust your body, listen to it. Get checked as often as you feel you need.