Commission of inquiry needed for CervicalCheck

Áine Ryan

THE original decision to outsource cervical smear tests in 2008, when Mary Harney was Minister for Health, has been criticised, as the Standing4Women campaign in Mayo examines the Scally Report into the CervicalCheck scandal, published last week. While welcoming the 50 recommendations in the report, Co Mayo organiser Tara Bleeks said there was still need for a commission of inquiry into the scandal, which left over 200 women with false results in their cervical smear checks.  
Calling for mandatory open disclosure and a timeline for the Patient Safety Bill, Ms Bleeks said that ‘as a scoping inquiry the Scally report was not going to be apportioning blame, therefore we still need a commission of inquiry’.
Ms Bleeks said: “Accountability and redress is essential for transitional justice for these women and their families. Dr Gabriel Scally has to be commended for highlighting that our healthcare system is entrenched in a culture of misogyny and maltreatment of women.
“He did not shy away from outlining the disgraceful manner in which some consultants, the majority of them men, treated their patients in the open disclosure meetings, in which they informed the women they had received false smear results and had chosen to withhold that information from them.”
In a statement, she noted the fact that Co Mayo woman, Louise Swift was quoted at his press conference after the report was published last week. Ms Swift, who addressed a protest meeting in Westport during July is ‘adamant that the only way to get accountability is through a commission of inquiry and that face-to-face apologies from consultants is not adequate redress’.
Continuing, Ms Bleeks said: “Blame can be apportioned to the US labs, [which] we have now discovered further outsourced screening to other labs without the knowledge of CervicalCheck.
“But at the heart of this scandal is the 2008 Irish government’s decision under the guidance of Health Minister Mary Harney to outsource cervical screening to cut costs.
“This decision was made with the unequivocal knowledge there would be a 30 percent less chance of detecting pre-cancerous cells than if the smears were screened in an Irish laboratory. What an appalling vista it has turned out to be: outsourcing kills.”
She also said it was important not to forget that there are 1800 smears that were part of CervicalCheck which have yet to be audited.  
“There is a strong possibility that once these audits are eventually completed that we will see a dramatic increase in the number of women who have died because of this scandal,” Ms Bleeks said.