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The biggest blunder

Doctors could have saved her before it was too late...


Published by: Dawn Murden
Published on: 13 September 2012

As my mother-in-law Rona, 72, bounded through airport arrivals towards us, I let out a huge grin. She was always on the go. She'd only been back a few days from a caravan holiday in Cornwall with us before she'd jetted off to Spain!
My son Kieran, 11, ran straight into her arms.
‘Hello, my angel,' she gasped, catching her breath.
‘Are you okay?' my hubby Andy, 41, asked, taking her bag.
‘Just a bit tired,' she said. ‘Here are some sweeties for my favourite boy...'
I rolled my eyes. Rona was always spoiling Kieran. She'd often take him to a place called the Amerton Farm Craft Centre. The house was full of pots they'd painted there. He stayed over at her place at least twice a week.
‘Can I come to yours tonight?' he asked her, smiling.
‘Nanny's tired,' Andy said.
‘Nonsense!' she laughed.
But when I collected Kieran the next day, Rona seemed extremely breathless again.
‘You should go to the doctors,' I said, slightly concerned. ‘I've not got time,' she chuckled. ‘I'm doing May's shopping today.'
May was her 89-year-old neighbour. She was always running errands for her. But that was Rona. She'd cared for her hubby Eddie, 74, until he'd passed away two years before.
Three weeks on, she'd finally gone to the doctors.
‘It's a chest infection,' she told us. ‘I've been given steroids.'
But Rona soon developed a terrible cough. She didn't seem herself either. Every week we visited the riverbank where Eddie's ashes had been buried. Rona was usually the first to put flowers down. But she just couldn't keep up.
‘Slow down,' Rona gasped, miles behind us all.
So the doctor increased her steroids and promised an X-ray. Months passed though, and she still wasn't well. Even Kieran had noticed a difference.
‘Nanny seems tired,' he kept telling me. When we popped over one day, her house was strangely untidy. It needed a vacuum and there were dirty plates on the side.
‘Mum, do you need help?' Andy asked. ‘I feel so weak all the time,' she admitted. ‘Right, we're getting you a private X-ray,' Andy insisted. And the scan soon showed that something was very wrong.
‘There's a large mass on your right lung,' the doctor told us, days later. ‘It's pressing on your trachea and diaphragm.'
A biopsy confirmed what it was.
‘I'm afraid it's cancer,' the doctor said. ‘It's too advanced for us to operate at this stage.'
‘How long?' Rona asked.
‘With chemo, we predict you have six to 12 months to live,' he had gently explained.
I felt winded. Just a few months ago, Rona had jetted off to Spain. Now, she was going to die. If only they'd found her cancer sooner.
I wanted to warn Kieran. ‘Nanny's really poorly,' I explained. ‘She might not have long left with us.'
He cried in my arms. ‘We'll make the most of every day, I promise,' I soothed him.
Desperate for some quality time together, we rented out a cottage in Scotland for four days.
It was our calm before the storm, as Rona started treatment when we returned home.
‘I feel sick,' she groaned, after her first chemo dose.
The next day, Rona had terrible back ache. Even though the doctor gave her pain relief, it didn't help. We were due to visit Eddie, but Rona could only make it as far as the car. She never missed seeing him.
Worried, we called an ambulance. ‘The cancer has spread to your bones,' a doctor told Rona later that day. ‘We have to give you radiotherapy.'
Despite having received such a terrible diagnosis, Rona stayed upbeat. Every day we visited her and she greeted us with a smile.
One day though, she seemed really upset.
‘You don't know, do you?' she suddenly blurted out.
‘Know what?' I asked.
‘The doctor told me they found a scan I had four years ago,' she said.
My mind went blank. Then I remembered. She'd had a scan before Eddie died. His health visitor had suggested she get checked out because she'd quit smoking a few years before.
‘Weren't the doctors supposed to let you know the results at the time?' Andy said. She nodded. ‘I never heard back,' she sobbed. ‘I hadn't thought of it again until now. But they'd made a terrible mistake. It showed the cancer.'
‘So you could have had treatment before it spread,' I gasped.
The doctors could have saved her four years ago. I burst into tears, devastated.
The following day, we saw a consultant to try and find out what went wrong.
‘Why wasn't the scan properly examined?' Andy pushed.
All they could say was that an investigation had been launched, but that wasn't good enough.
Rona's poor body had been fighting cancer for four years - and the hospital had known all about it. With that news, her fight seemed to fade away.
‘She has a matter of days left,' a nurse gently told us.
Determined to make her last moments perfect, we brought Rona home and set up a bed for her downstairs.All the family came to say their goodbyes, including Rona's other granddaughter Zoe, 20.
‘You have to do something for me,' she told us later that night. ‘The hospital has to pay for their mistake. You need to tell my story.'
‘We will,' Andy promised.
Two weeks after she'd come home, Rona's breathing fell silent in the middle of the night. She was gone, just like that...
Rona was cremated and we buried her ashes next to Eddie, like she'd wanted.
Determined to fulfil Rona's dying wish, we've now managed to get a full report and formal apology from the hospital. They blame an admin error.
We understand mistakes can happen, but it doesn't seem right. If they'd found Rona's cancer sooner, she might still be here, making more happy memories with her family.

• A spokesman from the University Hospital of North Staffordshire said: ‘We would like to offer our sincere condolences to the family of Mrs O'Brien.
‘We would also like to reassure patients that the recommendations from our investigation are being fully implemented.'


Anna O’Brien, 38, Alton, Staffordshire