Doctors ‘sorry’ for death of cancer victim wrongly diagnosed 39 times

HEALTH officials have apologised to the family of a woman who died of lung cancer after doctors failed to diagnose her disease during 39 visits to the local health centre.

Jean Cross, a 60-year-old care worker, was told that the pain she was suffering came from a frozen shoulder.

She was prescribed painkillers and advised to have physiotherapy.

She died in a toilet at Dr Gray’s Hospital in Elgin the day before results of a scan confirmed she had lung cancer. The scan revealed a tumour so large it was crushing the nerves in her arm.

Her devastated husband, Colin, from Buckie, wrote formal complaints to NHS Grampian and demanded that an investigation was carried out.

Yesterday, Mr Cross said he met officials from NHS Grampian on Tuesday and broke down in tears after managers admitted there had been a series of blunders.

Dr Alison Douglas, a partner at Ardach Health Centre, stressed that the team regretted the handling of Mrs Cross’s care. She said: “On behalf of everyone, all of us, at Ardach Health Centre, I would like to apologise.

“Everyone who was involved with your wife thought they were acting in her best interests, and they were deeply shocked to find out this wasn’t the case.”

Yesterday, Mr Cross said he was relieved to hear medics finally accept that there had been mistakes and said he hoped he could now find closure.

He said: “They have finally apologised. They admitted there were a lot of mistakes made. I cried on the stairs in front of my son and daughter.

“An apology is all I wanted. I feel a lot happier now.

“We couldn’t begin to grieve properly until we got justice for Jean. I knew she had been treated badly, and I wanted them to admit that.

“The hospital investigation is still ongoing into why Jean was left on her own to die on a toilet floor – that should never have happened.”

Mrs Cross’s ordeal began when she went to her local GP at Ardach Health Centre in Buckie in February 2008 complaining of pain in her arm. She made repeated visits to the surgery as the pain intensified, but it was not until March this year that an X-ray was taken which revealed a shadow on her lung.

Mrs Cross was then sent for a CT scan at Dr Gray’s Hospital, but had to wait three weeks for the results because her local doctor was on holiday.

On 4 April, Mrs Cross was told she had suspected lung cancer and was admitted to hospital. She died the following day.

Mr Cross, who lodged complaints about his wife’s treatment at the GP surgery and the hospital, said: “Somebody had to be accountable for it. They kept giving Jean painkillers and morphine tablets when she should have been X-rayed.

“When she was admitted to the hospital, I was relieved to think that she was finally getting help. She asked me to bring in her TV the next day. Then I got the call at 4:30am to say she was dead.”

The couple’s daughter Amanda, 42, also of Buckie, said: “It’s a huge weight off my shoulders, it’s just fantastic that they have admitted it.

“Mum put her faith in that doctor’s system and they let her down, and we told them that.”

An NHS Grampian spokesman confirmed that another meeting scheduled with the Cross family would take a “detailed look” into the care she had received at Dr Gray’s Hospital.