A beloved mum, grandmother and great-grandmother died within weeks of being told she had a collapsed lung and stage four cancer. Her family claims life-threatening health problems were missed on a scan months earlier.
Marva Barra was a nurse for more than 20 years, working at North Manchester General Hospital and even delaying her retirement to help with the Covid-19 pandemic efforts. The 65-year-old finally retiring in February 2022, but was back in the hospital as a patient by September as she struggled with a persistent cough.
Hospital staff carried out an initial scan, but told Marva it was a simple case of asthma, her loved ones claim. Marva's health deteriorated. In December 2022, the true horror of her condition was revealed following a second scan.
Marva, who lived in Blackley, was left in complete shock, according to her daughter, and had a subsequent stroke. That meant she could not receive cancer treatment. By the end of January 2023, she was dead.
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Her family has been left completely broken. Daughter Michelle Grace-Bloomfield said: "It started with her developing this cough in September. My mum never smoked, none of us ever thought anything of it.
"Being a nurse for so many years, she might have known something was wrong. The hospital staff said that everything on the scan was fine and that it was just asthma, they sent her away with more inhalers. Then my mum kept deteriorating, her breathing was getting worse and worse.
"In November, she went to hospital with suspected pneumonia. She had another scan, this time medics saw that her left lung had collapsed, but they had missed it in the previous scan - and that she had stage four cancer."
The family says North Manchester General staff have revisited the first scan, finding that the problems were visible back in September. The revelations rocked the family, especially Marva.
Michelle has now been left wondering if the outcome would have been different had medics spotted the collapsed lung and cancer first time round.
"Staff had said that when they have gone back to the scan taken in September, it was a low grade cancer that could have been treated," she said. "When they had the realisation in December, it had already spread to her liver, bones and further into her lungs.
"It was so traumatic in a way I can’t explain. [The cancer and collapsed lung] was already there on the scan from September.
"If it was a small tumour or cancerous cells that they missed, I could perhaps understand it, but her lung had collapsed and no one saw it on the scan - it seems a bit much really."
Around Christmas time, Marva called Michelle 'completely frantic' at the horrible news, then the worst happened - Marva had a 'massive stroke'.
"I drove up to Manchester the night they took her into hospital. On December 27, she was told that because of the stroke, she wasn’t going to be offered any treatment," Michelle added.
"I called every consultant that I could find, private and NHS, trying to do anything I could for my mum - she could still stand and was sort of talking. Everyone said no," said Michelle. "On January 23, she passed away.
"My mum was a really strong woman, she worked in A&E for years, she could take almost anything. So for her to break down, it was heartbreaking to watch.
"She delayed retiring to help with the Covid pandemic and ended her career working in palliative care at North Manchester General.
"She was a nurse there for 20 years, that’s what is making it so much more hurtful. It was her place of work.
"Her colleagues have been absolutely beautiful and really supportive, a few close colleagues were constantly there looking after her. But it was all just so heartbreaking."
The family is now 'completely broken' after the shock loss of the mum-of-five, grandma-of-14 and great-grandma-of-two, all in a matter of weeks, Michelle said.
"I'm hoping that mistakes like this don’t happen again," she added.
Dr Rafik Bedair, Chief Medical Officer at Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We would like to express our sympathies to Marva’s family for their loss. We have investigated the care provided to Marva and unfortunately this did not meet the usual high standards we pride ourselves on delivering.
"An action plan has been developed to address the issues identified and to prevent them from happening again, and this has been shared with our staff and with Marva’s family.”
Michelle and her family are fundraising in memory of her mum, who herself was a keen fundraiser, starting a GoFundMe for a new radiography machine that can detect problems like collapsed lungs and cancer in early stages. "She would have wanted that," Michelle said.
If you would like to donate to the fundraiser, head here.
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