Great Barr woman gets pay-out after hospital failed to spot cervical cancer
A Birmingham mother who had to have a hysterectomy after a hospital failed to spot fatal cervical cancer cells during a smear test has won a five-figure pay-out.
Lyn Harris, of Great Barr, made sure she went for a smear test every three years but her efforts were scuppered by human error in the pathology lab at Birmingham’s City Hospital, in Winson Green. She was aged 49 when doctors broke the news that a routine smear in May 2005 had picked up numerous cell abnormalities and her only hope of survival was to remove the womb.
But they later explained that lab workers had missed cancer cells on Mrs Harris’s previous smear – with the error allowing the cancer to grow to a life-threatening level.
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, which is responsible for City Hospital pathology lab, has admitted liability and paid Mrs Harris a substantial five-figure undisclosed sum in an out-of-court settlement.
“The whole thing was like a terrible nightmare and I was in such a state before the hysterectomy because no one could tell me how far the cancer had spread and I didn’t know if I would live or die,” Mrs Harris, now aged 53, said. “When I was in hospital undergoing the biopsy I overheard the nurse say to the doctor, ‘how could it have got this bad in three years?’ and he said to her ‘because it has been missed’. I was hoping I had misheard but it all came out and I couldn’t stop crying.
“The doctor later said to me, ‘Your 2002 test did have abnormal cells and if they had been detected we could have given you the appropriate treatment, you would not have had cancer and you wouldn’t have had a hysterectomy and lymph nodes removed. I fell to pieces but I am just so relieved that the cancer had not spread to more organs and hopefully all of it has been removed.”
