Nearly 5,000 women wait on return call from helpline
NEARLY 5,000 of the 11,046 women who called the CervicalCheck helpline in the wake of the cancer scandal were still waiting for a call back, it was confirmed yesterday.
The helpline, which has been operating for more than a week to cope with anxieties about the accuracy of smear tests, experienced a surge of 200 calls again yesterday showing the level of concern which continues to grip women about the cervical screening service.
But it is struggling to return calls to worried women and a major backlog has built up.
A HSE spokeswoman said that, as of yesterday evening, 2,686 of the 7,678 women who asked to be called back had been contacted.
Damien McCallion, the HSE’s director of emergency planning who is now overseeing screening, said they were prioritising women who had a history of cancer or abnormal test results when returning calls.
“They need to talk directly to a health professional,” he said.
“We are trying to increase the number of staff to get through the calls much quicker. We apologise for the time it is taking.
“For a lot of those calls, women want to talk about their own particular circumstances,” he added.
Meanwhile, the HSE has still not contacted all the 209 women or next of kin about the internal CervicalCheck reports that looked at cases of cervical cancer where a false negative test result was given. As of yesterday, 198 women – or their families in cases where they are deceased – have been informed of their report.
Questions also remain about why one of the three laboratories used by CervicalCheck to read tests is more likely to find women need further investigation.
Asked why the false negative results – where women have been wrongly given the all-clear – had not been provided for each laboratory, a spokeswoman said this was impossible.
“False negatives are not measured as rates. One reason is that the underlying incidence of disease would have to be exactly known for a rate to be calculated.
“These are not measured internationally,” she said.
The laboratories, which have negative results varying from 85.89pc to 94.05pc, are not named for “commercial” reasons but this may change.