Padraig Creaven has promised to fulfil his late wife’s wishes and use the settlement money from her cervical cancer case to pay for him to have a baby, via their frozen embryos and a surrogate.
Six years after Aoife Mitchell Creaven passed away from cervical cancer at just 40-years-of-age in 2015, her husband Padraig has now won his High Court case, which outlines how the HSE failed to communicate the results of an audit, which revealed a change in the interpretation of Aofe’s smear test results in 2011.
While the figure of Mr. Creaven’s settlement has not been disclosed, he has included the cost of surrogacy in his claim, to ensure he can fulfil his wife’s wishes for them to have a child.
Back in 2014, when Aoife was first diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer, she was also 20-weeks pregnant at the time, through her fifth round of IVF. Sadly, the only treatment available to Aoife which would prolong her life was chemotherapy, which meant that she had to terminate her pregnancy.
With a very limited life-expectancy following her diagnosis, Aoife passed away in April 2015.
Mr. Creaven then went on to sue three laboratories, a hospital and the HSE over the miscommunication with his wife’s smear test results in 2011. Speaking out on the final results from the case, Padraig said, “I hope going forward that more women won't have to lose their lives before the system changes.”
“I am happy to have got an acknowledgement of responsibility for Aoife's death at last. I feel that I have got some small bit of justice for Aoife.”
An apology to Mr. Creaven and his family read, “The HSE and CPL (Clinical Pathology Laboratories, Austin, Texas) wish to acknowledge that this is a uniquely tragic case which has had the most devastating consequences for Aoife, her husband Padraic Creaven, the plaintiff in these proceedings, and for her family.”
“We deeply regret the pain, suffering and incalculable loss experienced by Aoife, Padraic and her family.”
“The HSE reiterates its sincere and unreserved apology to Mr Creaven for the failure by the CervicalCheck programme to communicate with him in a timely and appropriate way the results of an audit that indicated a change in the interpretation of Aoife's smear taken on 8 August 2011,” the statement concluded.
