HOSPITAL ADMITS ERRORS
An NHS hospital which failed to diagnose cancer in a woman until five days before she died has apologised to her family. Brenda Warner, 69, who died of a massive abdominal tumour, was placed on a psychiatric ward at Withington Hospital, Manchester, UK, because doctors believed she was suffering from clinical depression.
The cancer was identified seven weeks after she was admitted to the ward.
She died in August last year. Her husband Charles said: "She was admitted
to hospital as a psychiatric patient. No one would take her seriously.
"She couldn't eat, she couldn't swallow and they just said that it was
all in her mind and I, as a layman, believed that they knew what they were
doing."
Mr Warner, from Northern Moor, Manchester, said he felt he had been robbed
of the little time he had left with his wife, whose continued complaints of
stomach pains went unheard by doctors.
Representatives of the hospital met Mr Warner and have now promised a widespread
shake-up of services available to incoming patients.
South Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust said: "With hindsight,
although it was very hard to identify the signals, there were clues that something
else was going on.
"It is possible that this might have been identified earlier had there
been better liaison arrangements in place between the clinical teams.
"We are extremely sorry that Mrs Warner's family was not given this opportunity
and we have apologised to the family for this."
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