Hard questions need to be asked in light of Vicky’s case – Coveney
CANCER sufferer Vicky Phelan has been described in the Dáil as an “incredibly courageous woman” for going public with information on her misdiagnosis.
Ms Phelan, who has terminal cervical cancer, settled a High Court action against a US-based clinical laboratory subcontracted by CervicalCheck for €2.5m.
The 43-year-old took the case after it emerged abnormalities were missed in a 2011 smear test.
Tánaiste Simon Coveney (right) said “hard questions” will have to be asked in light of the case and the “key thing here is information flow”.
Ms Phelan’s case was subject of an internal CervicalCheck report in 2014, but she wasn’t informed about the error for almost three years.
The Tánaiste said changes were being made around the rules governing the flow of information.
“She should be entitled to that information immediately. It shouldn’t be moving between offices without the patient having that information,” he said.
“That is something we are going to change immediately.”
At the same time, Mr Coveney said CervicalCheck “rates very well with other similar screening systems in other parts of the world”.
“There is no perfect system and screening errors will happen,” he said.
The Tánaiste said women should be reassured that the screening programme “is saving lives”.
Ms Phelan’s case was raised by Fianna Fáil’s Dara Calleary and Sinn Féin’s Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire. Meanwhile, the Public Accounts Committee is also to seek information in relation to the disclosure of information to patients.
Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane pointed out that the audit of smear tests in 2014 had identified other cases of a missed diagnosis.
“The difficulty I have is that the doctors were not compelled to tell the women of the cancer test errors,” he said.
He requested that the committee writes to the Department of Health, the HSE and to CervicalCheck to get as much information as it can.
Fiánna Fail TD Seán Fleming, chairman of the committee, said that it would write to them.