Four more cancer test victims could be dead
»» 18 women have already passed away »» TD hits out over lack of information
FOUR more women could be dead in the Cervicalcheck scandal on top of the 18 who have already passed away.
It also emerged last night there could be another 320 instances where smear test results were not screened which could have led to a misdiagnosis.
This figure was confirmed to the Irish Mirror by the Social Democrats’ Roisin Shortall.
She was speaking following a meeting with the secretary general of the Department of Health Jim Breslin and the State’s chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan.
Ms Shortall said: “Last week the HSE was saying the people they weren’t able to contact had either moved or were travelling, so we just don’t know.
“So yes, it’s quite possible the death toll could rise.
“We simply don’t know, we’ve no information about those people at all.”
The HSE last night released an update which said 205 of the 209 women who received false negative tests had been contacted.
It is now almost three weeks since the Cervicalcheck scandal erupted and yesterday morning the HSE confirmed one of the women it had been trying to contact had died, bringing the total to 18.
The health authority has said it is having difficulty getting in touch with people who may be abroad or travelling.
The HSE has repeatedly refused to tell the Irish Mirror what efforts have been made to contact the remaining women or their families and would not concede that some or all of the four may be deceased.
For more than a week the executive has only been saying they have made “huge efforts” to get in touch with them and they may have been abroad for the past three weeks.
The HSE would not reveal if the women or their families had been phoned, emailed or written to, or even if there had been calls to addresses to try and make contact.
Ms Shortall said the facts indicate the death toll in what has become one of the worst health scandals in the history of the State could rise.
The former junior health minister added she had quizzed Mr Breslin and Mr Holohan about the growth of the scandal at a briefing for Opposition parties last night.
She said: “It was disclosed two weeks ago there were another 1,631 people.
“Now most of those wouldn’t have had a screening history but its estimated about 20% had, so that gives a figure of about 320.
“These women developed cancer and had screen tests, but they haven’t been audited and there’s no immediate plan to audit them.”
Scrutiny of what went wrong will continue in Leinster House today with the appearance before the public accounts committee of the scandal’s original whistleblower Vicky Phelan.
She will be joined by Stephen Teap, whose late wife Irene was another one of those whose Cervicalcheck screening also gave a wrong result.
The controversy emerged last month when the 43-year-old settled a €2.5million court action against a US laboratory the Cervicalcheck screening service had subcontracted to read smear tests.
Ms Phelan developed cancer after receiving a false negative result.
It later emerged test results were misread in 209 cases.
Yes, it’s quite possible the death toll could rise. We simply don’t know ROISIN SHORTALL DUBLIN YESTERDAY