Scot suffered 'horrible' death from brain tumour after doctors failed to read scans properly
10.08.2023 - 08:29
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
A much-loved pensioner suffered a "horrific" death from an operable brain tumour after doctors failed to properly monitor her scan results, her husband has said.
An investigation by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) has found that Glasgow-born May Ashford, who was 71 when she died in 2015, was not offered surgery until it was too late as medical staff failed to monitor her scan results properly and did not report significant findings.
Mrs Ashford, who lived near Blackpool, was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2010 at the Royal Preston Hospital after suffering headaches and seizures.
Despite regular MRI scans showing the tumour was growing and was pushing her brain to one side, she was told that it was not growing and was not offered surgery to remove it until May 2015.
Independent medical specialists told the Ombudsman that Mrs Ashford should have been offered surgery three years earlier. The tumour grew and affected the surrounding area of the brain, making it more likely that she could be injured or die following surgery.
Mrs Ashford died from a stroke in 2015 after her surgery.
Her husband Alan Ashford, now aged 73, said: "It was horrific. They just left the tumour to consume her."
He added: "I blame myself because I just trusted him (the doctor). At the end of the day, she was effectively slowly dying over a four-and-a-half year period. She was dying before my eyes if you like and I had no idea."
The couple had met in 1971, before getting married in 1979 and moving to Blackpool to start a family which includes three children, a granddaughter and a one year-old great granddaughter whom Mrs Ashford never got to meet.
Mr Ashford said his wife suffered from depression and "that created problems but she was a