The partner of a much-loved mum who died from cervical cancer said her five children are still asking themselves “why?”.
36-year-old Jennifer Mason died last year, after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer in March 2020.
Despite concerns that there were missed opportunities to diagnose her sooner, an inquest held at Morpeth Coroner's Court concluded it was "not possible" to determine if it would’ve changed the outcome.
Her partner, Simon Dodd said their five children are still struggling to come to terms with their mother’s death.
Xander, six, Deja, 12, Esyka, eight, Kiefyn, nine, and Brennan, 15, are still receiving grief counselling to cope with their loss.
Simon said: "We've got a nice big blanket and we keep that in the sitting room and the kids like to cuddle into it every now and then. My youngest one still misses mam and tells me every day.
"But they're typical kids, they play out with their friends and come back in and go to bed, go to school, but they still have questions. They're not over it, they're probably still asking themselves 'why?'.”
The 40-year-old dad believes that Jennifer’s cancer should have been detected sooner, as she had gone to the hospital for pain she was experiencing back in November 2019.
A scan discovered that Jennifer had an abscess on her ovaries, but an inquest heard that a triple swab test, which was also carried out at the time, "did not pick up anything concerning".
During surgery to treat the abscess, "nothing abnormal with the cervix" was found and the mum of five did not receive a diagnosis as a result.
But Simon has maintained his belief that the scans were a "missed opportunity" to detect Jennifer’s cancer.
He added: "It was six months later when she went back in with bleeding and she was scanned again. They compared the two scans then and they saw that they'd missed it six months earlier."
Despite the inquest into her death, Simon feels many of his questions are still yet to be answered.
A "high level" investigation was conducted over concerns her cancer had been missed during the abscess surgery.
Consultant James Golding, who carried out the investigation, told the inquest: "We felt clinically, the right course of action was taken.
"The documentation could have been better, but her clinical position in November was a potentially life-threatening event and needed treating urgently, which was done."
Since the inquest, changes have been implemented to improve documentation.
Now, comments after surgery must be made on a digital system regarding the condition of a patient's cervix.
Senior Coroner Andrew Hetherington concluded that Jennifer’s death was due to "natural causes and metastatic cervical carcinoma", adding: "It is not possible to say if earlier diagnosis or treatment would have prevented the outcome."
