‘Planning my funeral’: Mum’s six-day ordeal after bungled cancer diagnosis

A New Zealand woman was left “planning her funeral” after she was mistakenly given a terminal cancer diagnosis.

A Christchurch woman began “planning her funeral” after being mistakenly diagnosed with terminal cancer due to a file mix-up.

After experiencing stomach pain, exhaustion and significant weight loss in a short period of time, Toni Shields went to her GP and was given an ultrasound referral. When this showed abnormalities in her spleen, the 55-year-old was sent for a CT scan On May 22.

The next day, she was informed that an appointment had been made for her to see a doctor urgently.

“I asked, ‘How bad is it? What is it?’” Ms Shields recalled in an interview with The New Zealand Herald.

“(The nurse) said, ‘All I can tell you is that there are changes’.”

Christchurch woman Toni Shields believed she had terminal cancer due to a medical file mix-up. Picture: NZ Herald/Supplied

Panicking, Ms Shields accessed her medical records through her Manage My Health account – the New Zealand equivalent of Australia’s My Health Record.

The documents noted she had multiple cancerous lesions on her liver, and “the primary source may be pancreas”.

“I went to the doctor and she sat me down and said, ‘Unfortunately, it’s more than likely you have cancer’,” Ms Shields said.

“That was a hard pill to swallow. I just got quite anxious and had to sort of get out of there. I spoke to someone in mental health there as well before I left.”

On the drive home, Ms Shields agonised over how to break the news to her two sons.

“Telling them was just heartbreaking. My oldest looked like he’d lost so much weight, and he was glued to the spot and just shrivelling. He was just so broken,” she said.

“My youngest was very, very upset.”

Ms Shields spoke about the ordeal in a television appearance.

‘I was planning my funeral. I was looking into assisted dying.’

Ms Shields lived with the belief that she had a terminal illness over the next six days.

“I was planning my funeral. I was looking into assisted dying. I wanted to get some sort of age-progression pictures of my grandchildren so I could see what they would look like when they were older,” she said.

“I threw a lot of my old stuff out, thinking I wouldn’t be needing it.”

After going into the doctor for more blood tests, Ms Shields received another phone call from her GP: this time telling her that there had been a mix-up, and she’d been given someone else’s results.

“She was beside herself on the phone, she couldn’t believe this had happened,” Ms Shields said of her doctor.

“I’m just like, ‘What? So I’m not dying?’ She said, ‘No, you’re not dying, Toni’.”

Instead, Ms Shields had a non-cancerous cyst on her ovary. Her liver and pancreas are both healthy.

The head of Christchurch Radiology also called Ms Shields to apologise, and assured her a full investigation had been launched into how the bungle had occurred.

The 55-year-old with her two sons. Picture: Supplied/NZ Herald

Health New Zealand’s interim Canterbury group director of operations, Joanne Gibbs also offered her “sincere” apologies to Ms Shields in a statement, saying it is “extremely unusual for an error like this to be made”.

“We are sincerely sorry that Toni was given an incorrect diagnosis and we have apologised for the significant stress that we have caused both Toni and her family,” Ms Gibbs said.

“We are undertaking a full review of how this occurred to identify where improvements can be made and ensure this does not happen again in the future.

“We will continue to be in contact with Toni as the investigation into this incident continues, and she is welcome to contact our Radiology team with any other questions and comments she may have.”

Ms Shields told The Herald she was still trying to work out her feelings about the situation.

“I know I’m angry and I want to know how this happened, but I also feel so bad for the person whose results they were,” she said.

“I really, really feel for them. What I went through, they are going through. Sure I got a happy ending, but they’re not.”

Originally published as ‘Planning my funeral’: Mum’s six-day ordeal after bungled cancer diagnosis