Hospital blunder cost life of Fiona Clark

Feb 28 2010 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

A WIDOWER whose wife died from lung cancer has been awarded a six-figure sum by the NHS trust which failed to spot the disease.

Fiona Clark, 42 from Whitehaven in Cumbria, was referred to West Cumberland Hospital for a chest X-ray in 2002 due to a persistent cough.

Even though an abnormality showed up, she and her husband Stephen were told it was “nothing substantial”.

Unbeknown to them, a cancerous tumour was already growing in her right lung, and it was a doctor at a Newcastle hospital who spotted the devastating error TWO YEARS later.

While the pair were on holiday in 2004, Fiona still had a persistent cough and was coughing up blood.

She visited her GP once more who this time referred her to a consultant at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle for a further X-ray.

Mr Clark said: “My wife’s consultant, Mr Bernard, put an X-ray against the screen for us to look at.

“He asked me what I could see.

“I pointed out a clear kidney shaped shadow on the right lung. He said I was right and broke the devastating news that what we could see was a cancerous tumour.

“He then revealed that the X-ray we were looking at was not the one he had just taken, but the one which had been taken two years previously at West Cumberland Hospital.

“He said radiographers had missed the tumour I managed to identify.”

In April 2004, Mrs Clark was admitted to the Freeman to have two thirds of her lung removed.