National Health Service payout offer insults woman whose breast was wrongly removed

Sep 6 2005

A Scottish woman whose breast was removed after she was wrongly diagnosed with cancer, plans to sue the Scottish National Health Service for the blunder.

Marjory Patterson, 52, who had a healthy breast removed by surgeons after being told she needed a mastectomy, has been offered £44,000 in compensation, but regards the offer as an insult.

The doctors at NHS Highland's Raigmore Hospital in Inverness have now admitted that the mistake came about because they had been looking at another patient's tissue sample when the diagnosis was made.

Mrs Patterson, of Alness in Ross-shire, now plans to take her case to the Court of Session.

Dr Roger Gibbins, chief executive of NHS Highland, has said in a statement that it was a tragic case where a mistake was made.

He apologised to Mrs Patterson as soon as the mistake was discovered and they have apparently been trying to negotiate a settlement.

Dr Roger Gibbins says the hospital would like to negotiate a reasonable settlement figure with Mrs Patterson to avoid unnecessary court action, and feels it is essential that the hospital learns from this mistake.

He reports that changes had been instigated at Raigmore Hospital and procedures have been tightened up to reduce the risk of such a mistake ever happening again. There will also be a review of the circumstances surrounding the case.

However it appears that Mrs Patterson's family are not satisfied with the offer and regard the hospital as biased and lacking in any understanding of what they have suffered.

Mrs Patterson has apparently been devastated by the mistake but wants to highlight her predicament, as apart from the trauma of being told she had a disease which might kill her, she has been disfigured for life.