US expert fails to find abnormality in Ruth Morrissey’s smear slide, court hears

An American cytotechnologist who recently blind-tested Ruth Morrissey’s smear slide which was sent to MedLab in 2012 has told the High Court she did not find anything that looked like an abnormality.

US expert fails to find abnormality in Ruth Morrissey’s smear slide, court hears

An American cytotechnologist who recently blind-tested Ruth Morrissey’s smear slide which was sent to MedLab in 2012 has told the High Court she did not find anything that looked like an abnormality.

The President of the Wisconsin Society of Cytology, Coleen Stowe, was giving evidence on behalf of the US laboratory MedLab in the continuing action by terminally ill Ruth Morrissey who has sued over the alleged misreading of her smear slides in 2009 and 2012 by two different US laboratories and which were taken under the CervicalCheck screening programme.

Ruth Morrissey was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014 which recurred last year. The court has heard that the mother of one has a maximum of two years to live.

Ms Stowe told the court she got a box of 12 slides. She knew the slides came from an Irish law firm but she did not know which side they represented.

Referring to Ruth Morrissey’s slide she found that it was negative for lesions or malignancy. She recorded the slide as negative. She said she found the slide to be adequate.

Cross-examined by Patrick Treacy SC for Ms Morrissey, Ms Stowe said she was paid a fee for the blind-testing but she would rather not say how much.

Ruth Morrissey and her husband Paul Morrissey of Kylemore, Schoolhouse Road, Monaleen, Co Limerick, have sued the HSE and the US laboratory Quest Diagnostics Ireland Ltd with offices at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin, along with Medlab Pathology Ltd with offices at Sandyford Business Park, Dublin 18.

It is claimed there was an alleged failure to correctly report and diagnose and there was an alleged misinterpretation of her smear samples taken in 2009 and 2012. A situation, it is claimed, allegedly developed where Ms Morrissey’s cancer spread unidentified, unmonitored and untreated until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in June 2014.

It is further claimed a review of the 2009 and 2012 smears took place in 2014 and 2015 with the results sent to Ms Morrissey's treating gynaecologist in 2016, but she was not told until May 2018 of those review results which showed her smears were reported incorrectly.

The Morrisseys further contend that if Ms Morrissey had been told the results of the smear test audits in late 2014 or early 2015, she would have insisted on an MRI and other scans.

The HSE, the court has already heard admitted, it owed a duty of care to Ms Morrissey. The laboratories deny all claims.

The case before Mr Justice Kevin Cross continues tomorrow.

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