My 10 years of terror

- 19 July 2005;Used with kind permission of the Daily Mail

Dereta Greenaway, 58, a mother of two from Kent, was told she had a breast cancer after a pathologist at Kent and Canterbury Hospital misdiagnosed her biopsy. The blunder was part of Britain’s biggest cancer-screening scandal which resulted in the deaths of eight women and needless surgery for many more. Here Dereta tells Marianne Power about her experience.

There was nothing unusual about the brown envelope that arrived for Dereta Greenaway, nothing to indicate it was a letter that would change her life. Polite and to the point, it said that she needed to contact her GP urgently.

Immediately, Dereta feared the worst – that the breast cancer diagnosed ten years before had returned.

The 58-year-old former art gallery owner, who had returned to England for a few weeks from her new life in Egypt, made an appointment to see the doctor the next day.

What he told her was almost as devastating as the first diagnosis.

Because of a mistaken evaluation of a biopsy in the hospital laboratory – uncovered almost ten years later – she’d endured not only a mastectomy but also a decade of fear, uncertainty and eight further operations for absolutely no reason. She’d never had cancer.

Dereta was a victim of the Kent and Canterbury screening scandal, in which hundreds of mistakes were first uncovered in 1996. These errors had resulted in some women being mistakenly told they had cancer and undergoing needless operations, while others died because the cancer was missed.

At first, errors were thought to be confined to cervical smears but further investigation in 1999 found that breast cancer samples had also been misdiagnosed.

In 2000, Dereta received a letter of apology from Kent and Canterbury Hospital and compensation, but she is speaking out now following a GMC ruling in May that one of the men involved, Dr Alexander Gibson, the head of pathology lab at the time was not guilty of professional misconduct because mistakes in this field are "inevitable’.

While she understands the difficulties medical professionals can face making an accurate diagnosis, Dereta feels enraged that so many women suffered unnecessarily and that no one appears to have been held accountable.

"I feel like ten years of my life have simply been brushed aside’, says Dereta. "If this man is not responsible for what happened, then who is?’

Almost five years after being told about the terrible mistake, Dereta got an email from her solicitor, Sarah Harman , explaining that after extensive investigation the General Medical Council had decided not to strike off the pathologist responsible for her misdiagnosis, Dr Alexander Gibson, who had now retired.

He had personally misdiagnosed five women, two of whom later died. The GMC said that although Dr Gibson "displayed a lack of professional care’; they accepted that "from time to time pathologists will simply make mistakes’.

Conduct Panel Chairman Mary Clark-Glass told him: "You made errors, as other consultant general pathologists have done and as they probably will continue to do so from time to time. Although medical practitioners should do everything possible to eliminate such errors, the public will understand that a small percentage of mistakes is inevitable in this field of medicine, which is not a precise science’.

Dereta and the other families directly affected by the mistakes of Dr Gibson are distraught. Dereta believes she has to tell her story, not because anything can now be done to change her situation, but to ensure this doesn’t happen to others.

"I cannot believe there is nothing to stop this doctor going out and working again. The report from the GMC suggested we all make mistakes but sometimes the repercussions are like ripples in a pool, they spread and go on and on. Nothing can change what has happened, but I cannot let my story be swept under the carpet, like is doesn’t matter. For my sake and for the sake of the other women affected I have to speak out. Apparently Dr Gibson said that my cancer was a grey area and that he had to make a decision about operating or not. But if it was a grey area, he should have asked for a colleague’s opinion. As it transpires, the independent reviewer said that there was no grey area – my breast tissue showed a benign condition. I don’t wish to put anyone off going for a test. Many women are here today who might not have been, thanks to all the men in smart suits, but you must always get a second opinion – right back to the pathology tests – if you are unsure. It’s your body’.