Cancer blunder call to fellow patients
Sutton Kings Mill Hospital 2012
A BREAST cancer patient who was given incorrect test results by King’s Mill Hospital is urging other women to get in touch to look at taking joint legal action.
Anne Harman says she was ‘absolutely devastated’ when she was contacted by the hospital and told that she had been given a negative result to an oestrogen receptor test when it was positive.
Although doctors have said Anne received the correct course of treatment despite the error, she would have been put on anti-hormone tablets as an ‘insurance’ and is still awaiting tests to see if her cancer has returned.
Anne (56), who used to live in Kirkby but has recently moved to Birmingham, said: “They just said they wanted us to start on medication that we should have been taking for the last four years.
“We are not sure if it will give us much cover or not.”
Anne was diagnosed with aggressive oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer in 2008 after finding a lump in her left breast.
The treatment recommended was a left mastectomy, followed by six sessions of chemotherapy at King’s Mill and 23 sessions of radiotherapy at the City Hospital in Nottingham.
But then in October this year, her partner received a phone call from Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust saying she was one of the 79 women offered urgent breast cancer clinic appointments to review their treatment after receiving incorrect oestrogen receptor test results.
“We are absolutely devastated and disgusted by this revelation by King’s Mill Hospital,” she said.
“We felt that we had come so far through this terrible disease, getting more and more confident of a full recovery as time went by. Then to have the bombshell dropped on us, totally out of the blue, we now feel that we are virtually starting the whole process of recovery once more.”
Anne says she has no complaints about the treatment she received at King’s Mill for her cancer, but has had a six-week wait for a follow up appointment since being informed of the error and has not yet had a scan or blood test to see if the cancer has returned.
She has also had to stop taking the tablets prescribed because of the side effects.
Anne feels she has been left with no choice but to take legal action against the trust for its mistake and is hoping other affected women will join her in pursuing a class action.
“We feel really strongly about this serious failure with the oestrogen receptor testing at King’s Mill Hospital and have therefore, after long deliberation on the matter, decided to proceed down the road of taking legal action,” she said.
“We would therefore like to hear from anyone that has been affected by this situation and are considering taking further action against King’s Mill Hospital.
“If we could all come together as one voice in a large class action, I am sure that it will give us all a much more powerful voice.”
Despite contacting Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust several times, it was unable to provide us with a comment as the time Chad went to press.
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Wednesday 22 May 2013
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