NOW INQUIRY WILL COVER BOWEL AND BREAST SCREENING

Concerns over other aspects of the National Screening Service

HEALTH Minister Simon Harris has extended the independent CervicalCheck inquiry to Breast Check and BowelScreen, a Health Department spokesman told the Irish Daily Mail last night.

The minister wants the review to look at the other main arms of the National Screening Service.

This is likely to include a detailed lookback over results from a set number of years from the National Breast Screening Programme, and the National Bowel Screening Programme, sources said.

And the Health spokesman said: ‘The minister has ensured that implications

for the other screening programmes will be examined as part of the inquiry being established.’

The minister’s decision comes in the wake of the Mail report, on Wednesday, that at least six women developed breast cancer despite being given the all-clear by the HSE’s BreastCheck.

And problems with the bowel-screening programme emerged when the HSE reached a ‘substantial settlement’ last year over two of 13 people affected by missed cancer diagnosis.

Concerns have been growing since Limerick mother-of-two Vicky Phelan, who has terminal cervical cancer, exposed the smear test controversy after she settled her High Court action against a US laboratory for €2.5million. It has emerged since that as many as 1,500 more women are at risk of being brought into the continually escalating cervical cancer scandal.

Fianna Fáil health spokesman Stephen Donnelly welcomed last night’s news.

He said: ‘It is essential we look at false positives across the entire screening programme. We need to know what is the look-back/audit policy for every identified case of cancer.

‘And in those cases where a false positive has been identified, we need to know if all patients and doctors have been told and how long after the false positive came to light were they told.

‘This needs to be done right across the national screening programme, and the State has to go back to the very start of the programme,’ he said. The HSE declined to comment.

As the Mail reported on Tuesday, there are ongoing issues surrounding the State’s BreastCheck programme. At least six women have breast cancer despite being given the all-clear by BreastCheck. Three of them have since died. Two more of the women now have terminal cancer and a sixth is undergoing ‘aggressive’ treatment to combat her cancer.

Five of the six women received the allclear after undergoing BreastCheck mammograms only to discover within a relatively short space of time – one to two years – that they had late stage breast cancer.

Issues also emerged in recent years about the State’s bowel-screening programme.

Just last year, medical negligence lawyer Roger Murray came to a ‘substantial settlement’ with the HSE in relation to two of the 13 people affected by missed cancer diagnosis at Wexford General Hospital.

Their cases emerged during a recall of 600 patients who had undergone colonoscopies between 2013 and 2014.

Two patients subsequently died, and others are still being treated.

Meanwhile, a message from the State Claims Agency issued to Fianna Fáil’s Mr Donnelly last night said the HSE was involved in ten claims. It has received indemnities in three of them from laboratories and ‘of the other seven claims, we can confirm that the only claim that has settled is the Vicky Phelan claim. The other six claims are ongoing’.