Women 'losing the faith' in CervicalCheck and want answers

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Last Thursday it was revealed that around 800 women who underwent CervicalCheck screening were not issued with their results due to what the HSE said was an IT issue at a US laboratory.

The tests were carried out between October 1, 2018 and June 25 this year and were mainly repeat tests for human papillomavirus (HPV). The HSE has said that a small number of tests affected by the issue have also been identified outside of this time period.

The problem arose in one Quest Diagnostics laboratory in Chantilly in Virginia in the US, which the HSE said was quality assured and part of extra Quest Diagnostics capacity secured by CervicalCheck.

‘Sharon’ told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that she was overwhelmed by the attention the issue has received in the last five days.

“All I really wanted to do was find out where my results were and obviously when I found out there was possibly an issue for other women, that's all I really wanted to be raised.

“That the women had the opportunity to know that the results were being held up somewhere in terms that they hadn't got the letter and their doctors hadn't been advised, so I absolutely welcome, considering the story only broke on Thursday evening, how quickly that the inquiry and the terms of reference have been confirmed.”

However, she said she had concerns about some of the terms of reference.

“I read through them when the press release came out and there were just a couple of obvious things that came across to me, and whilst I know it is an independent chairperson, I just felt that considering it was the Department of Health, the HSE and CervicalCheck that ultimately were being looked into, that the team that would support the chairperson would all based out of the HSE.

"So I did have a bit of a concern about that.

I also had a concern about the scope of who's involved, it wasn't very clear who they would be talking to -would they be talking to any of the women concerned or was it going to be solely based on the staff that were involved in the entire end-to-end process?

“Also it didn't really mention was the report going to be made public in its entirety or would it be a draft that we would see and I really just think that at this stage with everything that's going on with the CervicalCheck scandal that everybody has a right to know the truth and what really did happen here.”

‘Sharon’ was also concerned that the issue has become politicised.

“From when it all broke it's been referred to as the 800 women and I think it's become very political very quickly in terms of who's at fault and whether it was Quest or whether it was somebody in the Department of Health or whether it was somebody in CervicalCheck or in the HSE and to be honest I think we're losing the faith of the women involved in this and the stress and worry that they're potentially going through so I'm probably one of the luckier ones in that I know I'm one of those women and I know what my results were and I'm ready for my results on my second test, but all of these women were someone's wife or someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's friend and ultimately I think the important thing is here that every woman is this scandal, just like the last time, is treated with respect.

“From my point of view, I'm very clear and I have all the documentation in terms of what happened and when and who I spoke to so I suppose a couple of issues I would have had when obviously the HSE first came out they said they found out recently and the first I heard about them being aware of the issue back in February was when I heard Peter McKenna on the one o’ clock news on Friday.

“Then second to that I also believe that the Department of Health said they were advised of the report on the 10 of July, but have since come out and said they found out on the 25 of June and that leads me to have serious concerns with the patient representatives because I know there was a steering meeting that happened on 26th of June, so why were those people not told?

“Again, it comes down to respect before the meeting that this had happened and that it was disclosed to them in a respectful way.”

When asked if she was hopeful that the inquiry will provide answers, she said: “I'm absolutely hopeful that we will get the answers we need. That's all I really want - the truth, just to know what happened and when and who knew.

"Because it's obvious people made mistakes in this entire process and somebody didn't tell, the decision was made not to send the letters.

“I have heard the HSE coming out to say that they understood it was being done manually, but I think there were too many things left to chance in the whole communication process and after everything that happened before I don't feel the lesson was learned.”