Lung cancer, dies at 56 after going to the doctor 26 times. “It’s a backache”

They had told her (26 times) that it was low back pain. Instead she was a lung cancer. A wrong diagnosis, which led to the death of a 56-year-old woman from Ponteareas (in the province of the Spanish city of Pontevedra). The discovery of the fatal disease only came when doctors performed an autopsy.

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The wrong diagnosis

The woman had turned to the national health service complaining of pain for 3 months. But she was told only that she had back problems. She always came home with painkillers. Now, the Xustiza Superior Court in Galicia has sentenced the Servizo Galego de Saúde (Sergas) to death. Consequently, they will have to compensate the family of the deceased with 20,000 euros. In particular, 10,000 euros for her widower and 5,000 euros for each of the couple’s children (plus interest for the last seven years). This is the verdict of the sentence to which EL ESPAÑOL had access.

Pain

It all started in July 2015. When the 56-year-old woman went to the Ponteareas health center with back pain. There she was diagnosed with low back pain and prescribed pain relievers and anti-inflammatories. But her pain has not diminished. She continued. And the Galician woman has returned to health centers several times. Among these, the hospital complex of Vigo.

At the x-ray

In the hospital they do a chest x-ray to check the condition of her spine. But they find no serious injuries. So they don’t do any more tests. The pain doesn’t stop. And the woman goes to the traumatologist who diagnoses her with discopathy, prescribing her new drugs.

The 26 visit

The woman continues to go to the emergency room. In all 26 times. But in none of these she was ever diagnosed with what she was really suffering from: lung cancer with metastases to various organs. The woman died at home in September 2015.

The doubts

What is not clear is whether the low back pain was a consequence of the tumor. In any case, the CTU of the actress family argued in court that there could be a correlation. It should also be noted that the woman smoked between 10 and 20 cigarettes a day for 30 years.

The sentence

The Galician High Court ruled that Sergas failed to perform the necessary tests on the woman for the correct diagnosis. And the NHS expert did not object on this point. Furthermore, the sentence states that, after the X-ray, “the tests should have been completed with other more precise techniques, such as a CT scan, to exclude other pathologies”, since the woman’s pain has not subsided. In any case, although everything took place within three months, the tumor found at the autopsy was very advanced, stage IV, so not even its timely identification would have guaranteed the woman’s recovery.

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