THE NATIONAL SCREENING Service has admitted liability today and apologised to the family of a woman who died from breast cancer after the service failed to detect abnormalities in two mammograms.
The High Court heard that Kay O’ Keeffe passed away on 12 May 2017 after a three-year long battle with cancer, but that her cancer was already incurable by the time of her diagnosis.
Breastcheck and the National Screening Service apologised to the O’Keeffe family today for failing to detect abnormalities on two consecutive mammograms, taken in 2011 and 2013.
The case was settled today with both services accepting that the delay in diagnosing Mrs O’Keeffe “materially contributed” to her death.
After the hearing, a statement was read on behalf of the family by their solicitor, Lorcan Dunphy.
“This admission and public apology provides a level of justice for Kay, her husband and her family for these catastrophic failures and their tragic outcome,” he read.
“At two separate meetings with Breastcheck Management in 2018, Kay’s husband asked how such failures could have happened.”
“In particular, how could two consecutive mammograms, on the same person, performed two years apart, be misread on each occasion, when every mammogram is read independently by two consultant breast radiologists.
“It is extremely hard to understand how the failure to detect abnormalities on four independent readings occurred and clearly indicates a process failure. The responsibility now rests with Breastcheck to provide the assurance to women in Ireland that such failures can never happen again.”
Labour TD for Tipperary North, Alan Kelly, stated today that he was shocked when Patsy O’Keeffe, Kay’s husband, first brought the issue to his attention in 2018.
“Today’s public apology marks the culmination of years of struggle by Patsy and the O’Keefe family to get some level of justice for Kay’s treatment.”
“They owed it to Kay. The catastrophic failures in process in this case are clear.”
“The question is how did they happen?”
“Screening saves lives. However, it is incumbent on me to ask the National Screening Services and Breastcheck what they have done in the intervening years to ensure no such process failures as catastrophic as this could ever happen again and I will in support of the O’Keefe family continue to do so,” the TD concluded.
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