Patricia died still waiting for €2.75m damages from HSE
THE family of CervicalCheck vi cti m Patricia Carrick are still fighting for justice despite her court victory, campaigner Vicky Phelan said yesterday.
It has emerged that Ms Carrick had not received the compensation she was due from the HSE at the time of her death.
Ms Carrick’s husband Damien announced on Wednesday of this week that his wife had died peacefully at home in Co. Galway, surrounded by her family.
‘They are fighting even after she won’
The mother- of-four settled her High Court action against the HSE for €2.75million on October 6, following mediation. At the time, Ms Carrick was terminally ill and receiving palliative care.
Her legal team returned to court within the last two weeks in a bid to get the damages paid to Ms Carrick and her family.
It is understood the HSE, which is represented by the State Claims Agency (SCA), is trying to obtain the damages from the laboratory involved, Medlab, which was a third party in the action, before paying the Carrick family.
However, the Supreme Court had directed, in the judgment it gave to the late Ruth Morrissey, that future CervicalCheck cases should be brought solely against the HSE. This was done by the Carricks.
The Supreme Court had ruled that the HSE was primarily liable for the CervicalCheck scheme, irrespective of whether the actual scientific tests were performed by others. It dismissed the part of the HSE’s appeal which suggested it should not be fixed with any liability in respect of negligence
A spokesman for the SCA said the agency did not wish to make any comment about the payment of Ms Carrick’s damages.
Ms Phelan, who took the first ground-breaking legal action over CervicalCheck, told Galway Bay FM that the Carricks and their solicitor Cian O’Carroll are still fighting for justice.
She said Mr O’Carroll was in court last week with the legal representation for the State, ‘trying to fight for Patricia’s settlement money to be paid out’.
‘They are still fighting even after Patricia won her case, they’re still fighting her, it just beggars belief at this stage,’ Ms Phelan said.
She said State apologies meant little when it came to a protracted court battle, or the efforts of the 221+ support group to achieve a non-adversarial tribunal. She said: ‘People need to know that this is what’s going on because… we had a State apology last year which really meant nothing, because here we are fighting a year later for a tribunal to be fit for purpose for the women and their families, so it’s all tokenism.’
Speaking of Ms Carrick, who received an a pol o g y from Taoiseach Micheál Martin, she added: ‘Some people don’t have a peaceful death, so I think it’s very important that she got home. I think that was very important for her that she got home.’
The HSE and Medlab Pathology, from Sandyford, Co. Dublin, both apologised in court last month following Patricia and Damien Carrick’s allegation that the HSE had failed to diagnose, missed or misi nt e r pr e t e d t wo s mear samples, taken in 2014 and 2016.
It was said the HSE, or its agents, were responsible for a situation in which her cancer ‘was allowed to develop and spread unidentified’ until July last year.
Ms Carrick was treated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and brachytherapy, but was told in February that the cancer had returned, and that it had spread.
Describing his wife this week, Mr Carrick said: ‘She is the love of my life. We have been through many challenges and we have always prevailed. The best mother that anyone could wish for and a wonderful wife.’
‘State apology was just tokenism’