A 37-year-old woman with cervical cancer, who may have less than a year to live, has begun an action for damages against the Health Service Executive and two laboratories.
Ruth Morrissey, of Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen in Co Limerick, and her husband Paul claim smear tests carried out in 2009 and 2012 were wrongly reported as being normal.
She says she was not told about this incorrect reporting until earlier this year, despite the fact that the HSE knew about it as long ago as 2014.
This is the first case to go to hearing in the High Court since another Limerick woman, Vicky Phelan, settled her case against US laboratory, Clinical Pathology Laboratories, in Texas, for €2.5 million in April this year.
Mrs Morrissey was diagnosed with cervical cancer in May 2014 and it recurred this year.
Her lawyers said the failure to correctly report the previous smear tests had devastating consequences for Mr and Mrs Morrissey and their seven-year-old daughter.
Senior Counsel Jeremy Maher said they wanted to ensure her remaining time was as comfortable as possible and that her daughter's future was protected.
He said their daughter had recently asked if she would have to go into care if her mother died.
Mrs Morrissey had been told the cancer would progress to being terminal within 12 to 24 months, but the court heard her oncologist had suggested yesterday that she had 13 months to live from the cancer's recurrence in February this year.
She and her husband are claiming negligence and breach of duty on the part of the HSE, US-based laboratory Quest diagnostics and Irish laboratory Medlab Pathology.
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Mr Justice Kevin Cross refused an application by the laboratories to adjourn the case to October or November.
The application followed news that Mrs Morrissey had a scan this week, showing an improvement in her symptoms.
This means, the court heard, that she could now be a candidate for radical radiotherapy treatment which could improve her prognosis.
The court had previously imposed an order preventing Mrs Morrissey from being named, but that order was lifted following an application by Mr Maher this afternoon.
He said that Mrs Morrissey had a smear test in August 2009 as part of the Cervical Check screening progamme. It was sent to Quest Diagnostics in Wyoming to be analysed.
It was reported as showing no abnormalities and the results were communicated to Mrs Morrissey via a letter from the HSE, who operate the screening programme.
A second routine smear test was analysed by the Medlab Pathology laboratory in Dublin in August 2012. Again Mrs Morrissey was advised there were no abnormalities.
Mr Maher said these results proved to be incorrect. In May 2014, Mrs Morrissey went to her GP and was urgently referred to hospital and cervical cancer was diagnosed.
He said her injuries were exacerbated by the fact that the HSE knew about the incorrect reporting of these tests in 2014, but this was only disclosed to Mrs Morrissey in May this year, following publicity surrounding Vicky Phelan's case.
Mr Maher said the HSE was intimately and intricately involved in the organisation of the Cervical Check screening service.
The HSE began a review of Mrs Morrissey's case- but she was not told about it
The court heard that after Mrs Morrissey's diagnosis, the HSE began a review of her previous smear tests, but she was not told of this.
The review found that the tests in 2009 and 2012 were incorrectly reported. Mrs Morrissey's treating doctor in Cork was told to add the results of the review to her medical records in June 2016. He did not tell Mrs Morrissey about it, despite seeing her in July.
In October 2017, Mrs Morrissey began having pain in her leg and felt something was wrong. She was diagnosed with a recurrence of her cancer in February 2018. She was also diagnosed with unrelated breast cancer.
The court heard her doctor, Dr Matt Hewitt, told her about the review in May 2018. In a letter to her GP, he said there was a significant chance she would not have developed cancer if she had been referred for treatment in 2009.
Senior Counsel, Jeremy Maher said the smear tests were clearly abnormal. If Mrs Morrissey had been treated in 2009, she would not have developed cancer he said or have undergone the invasive treatment she was now undergoing.
She had lost many years of her life, her career, she had been deprived of the opportunity of completing her family, of seeing her daughter grow and living the life she had hoped to live. All of these things he said resulted from the negligence and breach of duty of the defendants.
Her husband had suffered from depression and would suffer from the loss of his wife and best friend. They were adamant the time to make proper provision for their daughter was now.
He said Mrs Morrissey felt the lack of candour in telling her about the incorrectly reported smears might never have come to her attention, were it not for the fact that the issue was raised publicly by another victim - Vicky Phelan. And he said Ruth wanted to know why she had not been told.
The court was told that the HSE admitted it owed a duty of care to Mrs Morrissey but not to her husband and it admitted the results of the review should have been made available to her immediately.
The laboratories deny all claims made against them.
Ruth Morrisey watched Vickey Phelan tell her story and knew then she would be impacted
Ruth Morrissey began giving evidence in her action this evening.
She said she had the most difficult conversation she ever had to have with her daughter, who turned seven last week.
She broke down as she told the court her daughter had asked her if she were to pass away, would it mean she would have to live with someone else. She said she had told her she could not promise she was not going to pass away, but she would promise to fight as hard as she could to live for her.
Mrs Morrissey said she worked in customer solutions for UPS and would have expected to be promoted to manager, were it not for her health problems.
She and her husband both came from large families, and they had planned to have a large family themselves.
She said she was shocked when diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014, as nothing had ever shown up in previous smear tests. She had a procedure carried out in Cork which was less invasive, and it was hoped would preserve her fertility.
In February 2018, after suffering from pains in her leg, she was told the cancer had come back and she was also suffering from breast cancer.
Mrs Morrissey said her doctor told her that if she had been older, they would not have treated her and would have given her palliative care but, because she was young, they were going to salvage her life.
She said she was taken aback and told doctors they had to give her a chance, as she had a little girl at home and wanted to see her grow up. She said you try to dig so deep to carry yourself through, to try to survive.
She said she planned to have a double mastectomy to deal with the breast cancer as she was not taking any chances, but could not be treated for that cancer until the cervical cancer was under control.
She described the chemotherapy she had undergone as like being hit by a freight train. Mrs Morrissey said when she heard Vicky Phelan on television describing her case; she had a strange feeling and knew immediately she was also going to be impacted.
When she got a call to tell her that she was one of the women whose smear tests had been the subject of a review, her heart sank. She said this was the third blow.
She will continue giving her evidence tomorrow.
