Politicians’ concern is genuine – but we need more than soundbites and photo-ops
EVERY now and again there is a story that upsets us all. It strains our chests, passes a pang of guilt through our minds and leaves us wondering what kind of a horrible world we live in.
In an era full of dark chambers, it is very easy to become desensitised to war and indeed peace.
Syria is far away. Kim Jong-un is a cartoon character. And terror attacks on cities we’re familiar with are par for the course.
But on a very rare occasion something grabs us and sits uncomfortably with us for more than the length of an autocue script.
Vicky Phelan looked nervous as she walked out of court on Wednesday. Dressed in black, she hesitated momentarily before bravely stepping into the light.
Images of families speaking to the media outside the courts are a familiar site on the evening news. Generally we say ‘that’s awful’ and quickly move on.
But Ms Phelan’s interview was somehow different.
It wasn’t so much what she said as the way she said it.
“There are no winners here today. I am terminally ill…”
The €2.5m will be used to try to extend her life beyond the six to 12 months that doctors say she has left.
But it was when Ms Phelan’s voice trembled at the mention of her two children that the nation’s heart broke.
There isn’t a family or a community that hasn’t shed tears because of cancer. It’s a pervasive, evil curse that can sink hope.
So while we can’t fully grasp the torture that has been inflicted on Ms Phelan, we can be haunted by the quiver in her voice as she stood outside the Four Courts.
Health Minister Simon Harris told reporters on Thursday that what he took from her interview was that she wanted action.
By yesterday the HSE was sending letters to the doctors of 206 women who may be in a similar situation to Ms Phelan. The likelihood is that the vast majority of these will have been informed of the ‘false negative’ in their smear test – but the fact the question has to be asked is astonishing.
We shouldn’t need to tell doctors they have a duty of candour. Common decency should dictate that. As for writing letters to doctors asking them to check their files, somebody needs to alert the HSE to 2018. With all due respect to An Post, surely the HSE has enough people that it could have spent yesterday working the phones.
This is all happening against a backdrop where one arm of our Government spent this week squabbling over who gets to be the Floods Minister and the other was ramping up attacks on the opposition.
The soundbites about Ms Phelan’s case were in full flow too. Mr Harris spoke of “unimaginable pain and hurt”.
Micheál Martin found the Government’s handling of the situation “very disconcerting”.
Mary Lou McDonald spoke of “widespread concern and anxiety”.
Róisín Shortall said the whole thing “beggars belief”.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar urged people not to be “condemning any individual at this stage without knowing the facts”.
“But we are going to make sure we establish the facts of this affair – and we want to make sure as well, as a Government, that something good comes of this,” he said.
Nobody doubts that the TDs are genuine in their concern. Politicians are people too. They will have felt that pang watching Ms Phelan on the news too.
And if they have any bit of common decency they will waste no time putting the appropriate safeguards in place. For a start they need to speed up the process of checking whether the 206 women have been told of mistakes in their cases.
Simultaneously they must set about restoring faith in the CervicalCheck programme. It failed Ms Phelan but in the vast majority of cases, it works.
And when all of that is done, we can go back and ask Mr Varadkar the facts around how somebody thought it was OK not to tell Ms Phelan about her misdiagnosis.
Otherwise politicians are pointless.