‘Other health bosses need to consider their positions’

TERMINALLY ill mother Vicky Phelan has called for others in CervicalCheck to consider their positions following the resignation of its clinical director Dr Gráinne Flannelly.

The Limerick woman (43), who settled a legal action of her own terminal diagnosis for €2.5m last week, has said other staff and management in the organisation should also think about their own roles as the extent of the smear-test scandal escalates.

The HSE has confirmed that 206 women were wrongly given all-clear smear tests and should have been sent for further tests.

Ms Phelan was giving an interview live on the ‘Ray D’Arcy Show’ on Saturday night when word filtered through that Dr Flannelly had stood down.

“It was live TV, and I gave a little fist pump, but that was just instinctive,” she said.

“I’m glad Dr Flannelly has resigned. It was the right decision because I don’t think she could have continued. I think she would have been pushed anyway. This is a moral and ethical win for women.

“I have no doubt she did great work in her time, but the clinical nature of her emails to Dr Hickey in which they were to-ing and fro-ing over whose responsibility it was to tell me [her case had been misdiagnosed] was disgusting.

“There are other parties involved in this cover-up too, and I think more should consider their position,” she told the Irish Independent.

“Jerome Coffey [the head of the National Cancer Control Programme] didn’t cover himself in glory either.”

Asked last week whether or not doctors had an obligation to tell their patients what the results were, Mr Coffey said that decision was “between the physician and the patient”.

Ms Phelan said the first apology she got in relation to her misdiagnosed cancer was through her solicitor.

She also said she did not want to be silenced on the issue, which has seen crucial information from cervical cancer patients who were given false negative results after participating in the cancer screening programme being withheld.