The Morrissey judgment and the ‘absolute confidence’ test
The awarding of €2.1 million in compensation to a terminally ill Limerick woman who was wrongly given the all-clear by CervicalCheck has alarmed the medical profession, but if the state appeals the ruling, it risks alienating the public and campaigners
"Ruling may destroy screening programme", screams the headline.
This isn’t 2019, but 1999, and the English Court of Appeal judgment of Penney, Palmer and Canon had apparently just thrown the national cervical cancer screening programme into complete disarray.
The presiding judge had ruled that that Sandra Penney, Helen Palmer and Lesley Cannon were victims of medical negligence owing to the failure of cytopathologists at Kent and Canterbury Hospital to detect ...
