HPV tests for cervical cancer delayed again
Backlog of 78,000 smears built up after last year’s labs crisis has delayed roll out of improved testing
A NEW, more efficient test for cervical cancer will not now be introduced this year due to the backlog of smear tests built up by last year’s scandal, officials admitted yesterday.
The HPV test was promised for last September then delayed to last month. But it will not replace the existing screening system before 2020, the Dáil health committee heard.
It came as it emerged that more cervical smear tests were outsourced to outside laboratories than previously thought, it has emerged. Details are expected to be included in Dr Gabriel Scally’s second report into the CervicalCheck scandal next week.
CervicalCheck currently has a queue of about 78,000 slides for examination, and it takes up to 27 weeks to provide women with the results of those tests. Labs average 93 days to report.
Leo Varadkar yesterday acknowledged the decision to allow free out-of-cycle smears after the Cerpolitical vicalCheck controversy had contributed to major backlogs in processing test results, with waiting times having soared from up to six weeks to up to six months.
When pressed on the delays during leaders’ questions in the Dáil, The Taoiseach said that during the CervicalCheck crisis the Government was under huge pressure to act quickly.
He said: ‘Everything we did was in good faith, and sometimes we acted perhaps from the heart rather than the head, but this decision was done in good faith.
‘Tens of thousands of women were genuinely concerned about their smear tests, about the accuracy. Tens of thousands of women attended for those repeat tests and, yes, it is true that some doctors warned that this backlog would arise, but other doctors called for it.’
Mr Varadkar said the Government was doing everything it could to address the backlog and additional laboratory capacity was being sought.
The Irish Cancer Society yesterday said it wanted assurances the capacity will exist for follow-up investigations when HPV screening is finally introduced.
Anne O’Connor, interim HSE director-general, told the committee that 370,000 women presented to CervicalCheck last year, up from 280,000 in 2017.
In the Dáil Micheál Martin said there was no question the extra 90,000 tests stemmed from the decision of Simon Harris last April to offer a free out-of-cycle smear tests to any woman who wanted it. The Fianna Fáil leader said: ‘The overwhelming impact... has been to create this shocking backlog, which is now damaging the programme and undermining its overall objectives.
But the committee heard Mr Harris had received no advice at the time against making his offer.
Mr Martin said the free-screening offer had been ‘a knee-jerk reaction by the Minister which has damaged the overall programme and cost approximately €10million that could have been better used elsewhere.’
Mr Varadkar insisted it was ‘encouraging and welcome’ that the number of women attending for smear tests had risen over the past year. ‘The objective of the Government is to make cervical cancer a very rare disease such that it is almost eliminated,’ he said. ‘We will achieve that by improving screening through becoming one of the first countries in the world to move to the new primary HPV test.’
But his promise of HPV cervical tests being provided this year was scotched by Department of Health officials in committee. Secretarygeneral Jim Breslin said that as a direct result of the burden on the system, the Department cannot now set a target date for the introduction of the new HPV test.
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