Set up cancer compensation tribunal now, urges Vicky Phelan
The Government needs to act immediately to set up a compensation tribunal so that women terminally ill with cervical cancer can have their claims processed before it’s too late, according to cervical cancer campaigner Vicky Phelan.
Ms Phelan said she was contacted by a young, terminally ill mother of two over the weekend who feels she has no option but to go to court because she cannot afford to wait until late this year — the length of time Health Minister Simon Harris believes it will take to get the tribunal up and running.
“Her kids are younger than mine, aged five and seven, and her cancer has spread to her lungs and bowel. I asked her if the tribunal option was available would she use it and she said, ‘Absolutely. But I need the money. If I die, my husband won’t be able to survive [economically]’.”
Even though an audit of her smears, which the woman paid for privately, show they were misread, because she is not one of the 221 whose smears were audited by CervicalCheck, she is unable to access the same care package. Members of the 221 group can claim for a range of costs such as travel, childcare, and medical appointments, and they can access treatments and counselling.
Ms Phelan said the woman is one of “at least 50 cases that will have to go to the High Court in the next four months”, in the absence of a tribunal. She said some women are now so angry that they are considering going public with their story.
Ms Phelan, 43, who was told a year ago that she had six to 12 months to live, was also critical of the delay in producing a report to identify which laboratories were responsible for misreading smear tests.
“We still have no idea if there was a pattern, if one lab was making more errors than another in relation to the 221. That report has still not been produced.”
Last night, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: “On December 19, the Government made a decision to establish a tribunal as an alternative to court for women affected by the CervicalCheck audit… I have asked the minister for health and the attorney general to ensure the legislation is drafted, published, and enacted in the first half of this year.”
