Taoiseach acknowledges 'enormous anxiety' of women waiting for cervical cancer test results
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has acknowledged the “enormous anxiety” among women over the mounting cervical cancer test result delays, amid criticism over the government's free offer of repeat tests.
Mr Varadkar blamed huge pressure the government faced last year, including from the media, as a reason for offering the free tests which have resulted in an average six months delay for results.
With almost 80,000 women facing such delays to find out if they are at risk of cervical cancer, health authorities are scrambling to employ extra laboratory staff.
Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin said the free smear tests had now cost €10m. He also reiterated that, in his view, Health Minister Simon Harris did not have clinical backing to offer the free tests.
“My sources confirm that the overwhelming impact of that decision has been to create this shocking backlog which is now damaging the programme and undermining its overall objectives,” he said.
The decision to offer free testing to all women was not even supported by HSE former director general Tony O'Brien, was “not resourced properly” and has “caused unacceptable stress” and “backlogs,” he added.
Mr Varadkar conceded that a decision to allow free out-of-cycle smears had contributed to major backlogs in processing test results, with waiting times rising from four to six weeks to four to six months.
“I acknowledge that there is significant anxiety and concern among tens of thousands of women who have had a smear test and are awaiting the result,” he said.
Speaking about the decision last April, he said the Government was under a “huge amount of pressure to act quickly”, including from the media.
“Everything we did was in good faith," he said. "Sometimes we acted perhaps from the heart rather than the head but this decision was made in good faith.”
Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty called for the Health Minister to be sacked, insisting he was “out of his depth”.
Accusing Mr Harris of overseeing a “chaotic system”, Mr Doherty asked why labs were not consulted to establish if there was capacity to facilitate the free tests.
The Taoiseach highlighting the problems affecting the health service in the north during the current power-sharing impasse and claimed Sinn Féin had left the north without a health minister by pulling down the Stormont institutions amid a row over an energy scheme – the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
“So having denied Northern Ireland a health minister, now Sinn Féin wants to take away ours – we are not going to let that happen,” he said.
The Taoiseach suggested Sinn Féin’s professed concern for patients was not genuine.
“This shows the entire of approach of Sinn Féin to the health service, which doesn’t really care about patients, doesn’t care about the health service whatsoever. It’s just a stick to beat the Government with, it’s just a constant, ongoing political attack,” he said.
