£50,000 for Cancer Misdiagnosis
A woman has won £50,000 in compensation after a mistaken diagnosis led to her having an operation she did not need.
Claire Millward, 37, had undergone regular, routine tests for cervical cancer, but doctors at Northampton General Hospital failed to detect early signs of the disease. It was not until February 2008, when she insisted on having a smear test before it was due, that a diagnosis was made.
Mrs Millward claims that the hospital initially told her that she had ovarian cancer, rather than cervical cancer. Because the survival rate for ovarian cancer is much lower, for two weeks she believed she was facing almost certain death.
She underwent a hysterectomy, which means that she is unable to have more children and which turned out not to have been necessary. She and her husband had hoped to add to their family.
Mrs Millward, who has now been given the all clear, brought a claim for medical negligence against Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust. The Trust admitted that the test results had been incorrectly interpreted and that this may have led to a delay in diagnosing the cancer.