‘My wife could still be here with family’
Anger after HSE says no to supports over cervical cancer errors
THE husband of a woman who died from cervical cancer said he doesn’t ‘understand why Minister Simon Harris is discriminating against women and families’ who have recently learned they’re part of the CervicalCheck debacle.
Gary Murray, from Finglas, Dublin, was married to Fiona Prendergast, a mother-of-four, who died from cervical cancer in May 2015.
He learned this week that she was one of 12 women – referred to in a Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists report – who received a wrong test result from CervicalCheck and are now dead.
The Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal that the official death toll from CervicalCheck has gone from 21 in January to 23 in October.
These figures are from the original 221+ group and do not include Ms Prendergast. Therefore, the death toll is now at least 24 – and may rise further if any of the other 11 women referred to in the RCOG
‘In my eyes we’re just a number to him’
report were not part of the original 221+ group.
It has emerged that Health Minister Simon Harris will not be giving the same level of supports to the 250 women and families who have been added to the 221+ group, a group of women whose audited smear tests showed that they were given incorrect results.
A payment of €2,000, which was given to all the women and families affected last year, is being excluded on the basis that the payment falls outside of the package, according to the HSE.
Mr Harris has been asked to reconsider this decision by patient advocates Stephen Teap and Lorraine Walsh.
RCOG was brought in to review the slides of every woman diagnosed with cervical cancer through the CervicalCheck screening program since it was established in September 2008.
A total of 1,038 women agreed to take part in the RCOG review. Sixty of these women were already part of the 221+ group. On review, RCOG disagreed with the results of 308 cases out of the 1,038.
Out of the 308, RCOG found that there were ‘missed opportunities’ to diagnose cancer in 159 cases. It was also found in 27 cases that colposcopy (cervix examination) management was sub-optimal to the point that an opportunity to prevent cancer or diagnose it at an earlier stage was missed.
RCOG found that 12 women who should have got different results have died. There are 23 women who are part of the initial 221+ group who have died and Fiona Prendergast brings the official death toll to 24.
It’s uncertain how many of the other 12 women found through RCOG were already part of the 221+ group, according to a spokesman for the group.
When asked how he felt about his family not receiving the same level of support, Gary said: ‘I don’t understand that. I haven’t heard anything from [Mr Harris] , not even an apology to me and my family. In my eyes we’re just a number to him. If it happened to his wife, he’d understand it.
‘We’re going through the same heartache as the original group after finding out all of this. So I don’t know why we’re different.’
He added he was shocked by the Government’s reaction to the RCOG review. ‘I couldn’t believe they were happy with that result. There were 12 new families dragged into this, 12 women who are gone and their children left without mothers. It’s a bad result, it should never have happened.’
RCOG sent out individual reports to women and their families with details of their smear tests prior to the overall report, released earlier this week. Gary received Fiona’s review the day the Taoiseach was making an official State apology to those affected by the scandal in the Dáil. He said: ‘I asked the HSE why it was sent out on that day but they said they didn’t know; it wasn’t planned, they said.
‘I was gobsmacked when I sat down to read the report. She could have been around if she got her proper results. She could still be here with me and the kids.’
Gary and Fiona married two weeks before her death in May 2015 while she was in hospice care. He recalled the days leading up to her death: ‘She was in the hospice and she told the doctor to tell her when the time was up. The doctor told her she had a week to live and she looked at me and said she wanted to see her kids grow up and she asked me what if there’s nothing up there. I had a lump in my throat and I couldn’t speak.’
The couple shared three children Blane, 13, Zoe, 14, and China, 20. Fiona also has an older son, Gary’s stepson, Dwight, 22.
Gary said: ‘She was a great mother. When she passed away, I had to become a mother and a father and it was tough. She knew everything. I had to give up all that to be a full-time dad to the kids.
‘Being married and having the kids, that’s a family. When you lose your partner it goes pear-shaped.’
CervicalCheck campaigner Ms Walsh told the MoS that they were awaiting a response from Mr Harris about offering the same package of support to new members of the 221+ group.
She said: ‘He’s gone back on his word. He’s giving them the medical card but not the €2,000 that everybody else got. He’s discriminating against women that were joining the group through RCOG as opposed to the women who joined through the original audit.
‘We asked if they would fund independent reviews for women dissatisfied with their RCOG reviews. They’re the two big things we’re waiting on.’
‘She said she wanted to see her kids grow up’