Mum-of-five diagnosed with cancer after being given clear smear test in 2013

“I’m dying when I don’t need to die.”

Emma Mhic Mhathúna was given a terminal cervical cancer diagnosis this week after getting the all-clear in a smear test taken in 2013. The mum-of-five is now speaking out after her gynaecologist told her that if an abnormal test had been picked up in 2013, she would not be in this position. Emma says that telling her young family of her terminal diagnosis has been the hardest part of the ordeal, saying keeping bad news away from them is part of her job as a mother.

“It hasn’t hit me that I’m dying,” she told RTÉ News this week. “I’m just so worried that people are going to get away with it. “My children are going to grow up and they’re going to start asking questions. ‘Why did mam die?’ And if nobody is held accountable then they are going to take on the hatred and the fear and I don’t want that.”

Emma was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2016, however, this week was given the heartbreaking news that her diagnosis is now terminal.

'It hasn't hit me that I'm dying' - Emma Mhic Mhathúna speaks after terminal cancer diagnosis | https://t.co/Pi1tmGg05h pic.twitter.com/40WoGpBDn1

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) May 10, 2018

Her diagnosis comes as the HSE and Department of Health face further scrutiny for the CervicalCheck scandal of recent months, and Emma says she feels like those in power have not done enough to help.

“When it first broke out, I was like ‘OK, well, the head of the HSE is surely going to do something’, and he didn’t. “And then I looked to Simon Harris. I was thinking, ‘Well, surely the Minister for Health is going to step in and do something’. That’s why we give these people powers, and he didn’t do anything. “So, then I was like, ‘Surely, the Taoiseach is going to do something.’ And he just seems to be sticking up for them… they’re all hiding there in the Dáil and they don’t see what I see.”

Emma is now hoping to meet with President Michael D Higgins, with the pair expected to sit down next Wednesday to discuss the issue.