A 36-year-old woman who claimed her cervical cancer diagnosis was delayed by three years due to a misreading of a smear test taken under the CervicalCheck screening programme has settled a High Court action against the HSE.
The details of the settlement were not disclosed.
The case began yesterday but Mr Justice Paul Coffey was told today it had now been settled.
Senior Counsel Jeremy Maher told the court on the opening day of the case that the HSE admitted a breach of duty in relation to the reporting of the smear test taken in 2013 under the national screening programme.
The court was told the HSE also admitted a breach of duty in relation to a failure to disclose results of an audit four years later, which indicated that the original reports of negative for malignancy were incorrect.
The HSE denied other claims.
Mr Maher said it was their case that if the 2013 slide had been correctly read, the woman would have been referred for a colposcopy and a Lletz procedure and the abnormal cells could have been completely excised.
Instead, he said " a mistake was made" and she had to undergo very significant procedures to treat her cancer.
He said the delay in diagnosis led to a requirement for a second Lletz procedure, and the procedures in turn reduced the size of her cervix.
The woman's cancer was diagnosed in 2016 and it was at an early stage.
Counsel said while the follow-up was good from the medical point of view and she was cancer free, there were consequences to having the second procedure.
He said it has "affected every aspect of her life and she is not the person she was".
