Kelly welcomes apology for Tipperary family
The National Screening Service has apologised to the husband and family of a Tipperary woman who died of breast cancer that abnormalities in her BreaskCheck mammograms were not detected.
Two opportunities were missed to intervene earlier for the mother-of-three, the National Screening Service has acknowledged in a letter of apology read to the High Court.
Tipperary TD Alan Kelly has welcomed the apology. He was contacted by Patsy O’Keefe from Clonmel in early 2018 regarding the untimely passing of his wife Kay the previous year.
The Labour TD said: “Patsy got in touch with me as not just a Tipperary TD but based on my work with Vicky Phelan. He told me the story about what had happened to Kay and I was shocked. I had not heard of any case like this before.
“I subsequently brought up the case (without naming the family) with BreastCheck and the National Screening Service on May 23, 2018, in the Oireachtas Health Committee. Further to that I arranged a meeting with the then Minister for Health Simon Harris in July 2018 and subsequently with BreastCheck in October 2018.
“This 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? Especially when as the family have said in their statement ‘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.
“As the family statement continues ‘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’.
“I am a huge supporter of Breastcheck and indeed all screening services. My track record demonstrates this. 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.”