This article is from page 3 of the 2008-10-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
Dr Schranz said he was a permanent
radiologist assigned to Portiuncula General Hospital and Roscommon County Hospital at the time.
‘I was only requested to report, on an urgent basis, … by the manager of Ennis General Hospital … (on) a number of casualty and GP films which had been outstanding for four to five weeks, some of which (not Ms Moriarty’s) were labelled as “ur- gent”,” the letter read.
Dr Schranz said he was sure of the date of the incident as it was his 40th birthday and he had to cancel plans since the situation “with outstand- ing x-ray reporting in Ennis was de- scribed to me as critical.
“On the day, I found the x-ray of Ms Moriarty was a single film amongst a pile in one of the offices. The request form simply said “fever” with no mention of the patient’s past history of breast carcinoma and extensive left breast reconstruction.”
“This radiograph was dated June 11, but the first time I saw this radio- graph was in July.”
He went on to say the way Ms Mo- riarty was positioned for the x-ray was technically limiting.
The consultant radiologist said that he dictated his report onto a tape and Sam Lm Comma gop batee
“IT was not asked to cross-check
the final typed report before it was sent out. I have no way of veritfy- ing whether what was typed into the report was what I actually said on Fe olen
“My report said that the x-ray was grossly abnormal with a large shad- ow seen in the left lung,” he said.
There was no reference to this in an internal investigation into Ms Mor1i- arty’s case, or if this report was re- layed to the physician’s team.
In his letter, Dr Schranz said there was no mention in the hospital re- port of a chest x-ray performed, or an investigation performed prior to her discharge from St James’ when
she was given the all clear in April, two months before she presented in Ennis with a fever. At the very least, these should have include an ultra- sound exam and CT scan. If these were clear then it is highly improba- ble that such a large metastatic lesion would have formed in a six week pe- riod between April and June 11.”
Dr Schranz also told the Minister that he was not informed of the inci- dent or the inquiry into it until it was over. “I fail to understand why I was never interviewed with regards to this inquiry, since I could have shed a lot of light into what actually hap- pened,’ he said.