The grieving widower of a nurse who died after her cancer was overlooked told an inquest she was a “beautiful… shining star” whose life came to a “painful, traumatic and unnecessary end”.
David Jones, 45, a chartered engineer, said everyone who knew his late wife Catherine, who died in November 2016 aged just 35, had their lives 'enriched' by her.
And Mr Jones, who married her in 2010, said the couple were looking forward to traveling the world together.
He said the cardiology nurse had achieved so much but also had “so much potential”, and had summed up the situation in her own words, telling him before her death that “at 35 I haven't lived my life yet”.
He described how they bought their dream home in Hawarden, North Wales, in 2015, but they weren't even allowed to celebrate their first anniversary there.
Widower David Jones, 45, pictured outside the hearing, whose wife Catherine died aged 35 after doctors missed her cancer
Catherine Jones, 35, wanted those responsible held to account, her widower told the inquest
By then she had been readmitted to Maelor Hospital, Wrexham, after discovering her cancer had been missed in previous tests and had returned, he told the ongoing inquest in Ruthin, Flintshire.
Mr Jones said: 'The news was devastating and she wasn't expecting it, her surprise and disbelief… will haunt me.
“The sheer magnitude of the news in October 2016 opened an unstoppable sinkhole beneath us.”
But he added: 'Catherine wanted those responsible to be held to account… to prevent others from being put at risk.'
Mr Jones said a series of mistakes had been made at Maelor, including senior doctors not taking responsibility for listening to patients, not reading scan requests properly and not following correct guidelines.
“The safety of the patient is and remains at risk,” he said, adding that it was “horrendous” to see his “wonderful wife abandoned” and “to know that the situation could have been avoided.” .
He added that she had 'died an ignoble and premature death in the hospital where she worked and trained'.
Mr Jones was thanked by the coroner, John Gittins, who said he 'fully' acknowledged all the efforts Mr Jones had made to ensure the 'full facts' were known to him.
Earlier today the inquest heard details of another failure in the treatment of Ms Jones.
Dr. Himanshu Patel, a consultant radiologist at Maelor Hospital, was questioned by Louis Browne KC, the lawyer representing Ms Jones' family, about whether he accepted he had 'misreported' a 2016 scan.
Mrs Jones (pictured) died in November 2016 after becoming unwell again earlier that year
Wrexham Maelor Hospital in North Wales (pictured) where Mrs Jones worked and had surgery
Dr. Patel told the inquest: 'I looked at the scan and thought the ovary was there and that's how I reported it.'
However, both of Ms Jones' ovaries had been removed months earlier in June 2016 when she underwent a hysterectomy to remove a 2.5kg cancerous cyst from her right ovary.
The inquest had previously heard how doctors failed to carry out surgery to remove the right ovary and fallopian tube as recommended four years earlier in November 2012 by a senior gynecological oncologist, backed by Ms Jones herself.
The gynecological oncologist, Philip Toon, feared that a cyst on one of the nurse's ovaries could be cancer.
Mr Toon, now retired, said it was possible Ms Jones could have survived if the procedure had been carried out as he recommended.
Coroner John Gittins has also heard from medical staff about issues with access to patient records.
Dr. Patel agreed that he would not have reported a mass on the left side as an ovary, and that he would have raised issues if he had satisfied himself that the operation mentioned in Mr Toon's notes on the paperwork was was executed.
Mr Patel said: 'I doubted the clinical information. I learned something from this. I now have electronic access to patient files.'
Dr. Simon Gollins, a clinical oncologist who heard evidence at the inquest this week, told the coroner that doctors had been “misguided” by the aggressive pace of the disease after it was rediscovered.
The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which runs Maelor Hospital, has accepted that a 2013 biopsy was wrongly reported as 'benign' when it was a 'borderline' cancer.
Senior coroner Mr Gittins noted that 'mistakes happen'.
The investigation will be completed tomorrow.