Woman left to die alongside men watching World Cup.Family wants justice

A furious husband has told of the heartbreaking final hours of his wife's battle with cancer – and demanded answers after she was left to die in a ward surrounded by men watching the World Cup.

Stephen Bergin’s wife Paula was admitted to University Hospital in Waterford with gallstones but four weeks later doctors told her she had cancer and it was spreading rapidly.

Now the 48-year-old’s family wants an explanation of her treatment and why it took doctors so long to diagnose her cancer.

Stephen told the Irish Daily Mirror: “Why weren’t we told from the start that cancer was a possibility? She was up in the antenatal ward. A lot of people think she could still be with us if she was diagnosed properly.

“We are not looking for anything, we just wouldn’t like it to happen to someone else. We were asking for gallstones to be taken out and it turns out she had cancer. She was treated like a dog.”

Mrs Bergin, a mother of one, was admitted on May 12 with pains to the abdomen and was placed alongside pregnant women in the antenatal ward.

One Friday in June she was in “excruciating pain” but was not seen by doctors until the Monday morning.

She was taken for emergency surgery and her family was told a small cancer was removed. They say they begged for a private ward for her but instead she was placed in a public room with several men.

Her sister Alice said: “There was a number of men in the ward. The World Cup was on. Their main thing was to watch the matches – she was really distressed.

“We asked several times for a private room. We couldn’t understand it.

"Paula was asked to leave the public ward because she was disorientated and disturbing her roommates. She was forced to sleep in the corridor for two nights.”

Following the operation Mrs Bergin’s condition deteriorated rapidly and she was told the cancer had spread.

She passed away in the public ward surrounded by her family, while the other patients watched the football.

Alice, the eldest of the five, said: “It was so undignified. We had no place to go. We feel so let down. She died with other people in the room with all of us trying to be around the bed. It was just a horrible experience.

“I just remember her saying, ‘I didn’t deserve this’. Paula was a private person. She deserved a bit of dignity. It wasn’t too much to ask."

Now her family is seeking an apology for the delayed diagnosis of cancer and her placement in a public ward.

Mr Halligan said: “The treatment this poor lady and her family were subjected to at such a sensitive and unsettling time in their lives is nothing short of disgraceful.

“I find it utterly incomprehensible that a lady in her dying hours could have been left on a public ward surrounded by male patients particularly given these men were animated and shouting, following live World Cup matches at the time.

“I find it astounding that an alternative bed could not have been located within the hospital where this lady could have lived out her final hours with dignity.”

A spokesman for the Health Service Executive in Ireland said: “The HSE is aware of the matter raised by the Irish Mirror and has extended its sympathies to the bereaved.

“As there are individual circumstances involved, University Hospital Waterford and the HSE will continue to liaise directly with the family concerned.”