Anger at cancelled meeting on CervicalCheck scandal

Many women and families affected by the CervicalCheck scandal reacted with anger to the decision by Health Minister Simon Harris to cancel his meeting with them at short notice.

Anger at cancelled meeting on CervicalCheck scandal

Many women and families affected by the CervicalCheck scandal reacted with anger to the decision by Health Minister Simon Harris to cancel his meeting with them at short notice.

Jennifer Blighe from Dublin, a member of the 221+ CervicalCheck Patient Support Group, said the minister had arranged to meet them yesterday evening.

Ms Blighe said the meeting had been arranged over a month ago but they had been waiting for it for many months before that.

Mr Harris cancelled the meeting on Monday night at a time when some of the members had already travelled to Dublin.

Ms Blighe found out in June that she was one of the women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal.

“I was diagnosed with cervical cancer last March, three months before I was due to get married,” she said. “I had an operation to treat it about six weeks before the wedding. That all went well. Obviously, there are side-effects from the treatment — I have edema now.”

Her consultant contacted her in June to say that two of her previous cervical smears had been audited — one from 2010 and one form 2013 and both had returned a different result.

Ms Blighe, her partner Conor, and other members of the group staged a small protest outside the Seanad yesterday at the time Mr Harris had agreed to meet the group.

Stephen Teap, one of the founders of the 221+ support group, tweeted that many of the members had to rearrange treatment, jobs, and familt arrangements to attend the meeting.

“Not impressed! The disrespect continues,” he tweeted on Monday night.

Mr Harris apologised yesterday for the short notice and for having to postpone what he described as “this very important meeting”.

Mr Harris said he had postponed the meeting because of the “significant time commitment” needed for the passage of abortion legislation in the Senate.

The spokesperson said yesterday evening that the meeting had been rescheduled for January 31.

Many members expressed their disappointment on Twitter.

One woman said she had campaigned strongly to amend the Constitution and allow the Government to legislate for abortion.

“But as a family involved in the CervicalCancer situation, it meant an awful lot to have this meeting on Tuesday. The cancellation the night before feels like another kick in the stomach,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, Mr Harris has published the implementation plan for the recommendations of Gabriel Scally on the CervicalCheck screening programme.

The Government accepted all of Dr Scally’s 50 recommendations.

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