Woman in other ‘Vicky Phelan’ case muzzled

Fears 200 women were given cancer all-clear

A LAWSUIT with striking similarities to the Vicky Phelan cervical cancer botched smear test case was settled in secret four years ago.

The woman at the centre of the case, taken against a US laboratory, and initially the HSE, had to sign a confidentiality agreement as a condition of her settlement.

She took the case after a smear test analysis missed abnormalities. The woman only discovered she had cervical cancer the following year after undergoing tests when she became pregnant.

Despite the HSE being listed as a co-defendant in the proceedings, its director general Tony O’Brien told an Oireachtas committee yesterday the organisation had no awareness of the case at all.

The primary defendant was one of three laboratories used as part of CervicalCheck, the national cervical cancer screening programme.

The lawsuit has striking ech- oes of the Vicky Phelan case. Ms Phelan’s €2.5m settlement with another laboratory also came with no admission of liability.

She was also requested to sign a confidentiality agreement but refused to do so.

Meanwhile, around 200 more women who developed cervical cancer may have been the victim of an incorrect smear test result.

They are among a group of up to 1,500 cancer sufferers whose diagnoses were not notified to CervicalCheck since 2008.

Their cases were recorded by the National Cancer Registry, which compiles disease statistics.

But CervicalCheck never asked for the information to be passed on to its service. It meant these cases were never audited. Senior doctors estimate fewer than 200 of these women could potentially have been through cervical screening service but wrongly got the all-clear.

Moves are under way to get the names of these women.

AROUND 200 more women who developed cervical cancer may have been the victim of an incorrect smear test result, it has emerged.

They are among a group of up to 1,500 cancer sufferers whose diagnosis was not notified to CervicalCheck since 2008, the national screening service.

Their cases were recorded by the National Cancer Registry, which compiles disease statistics. But CervicalCheck never asked for the information to be passed on to its service.

It meant these cases were never audited.

Senior doctors yesterday estimated fewer than 200 of these women could potentially have been through the cervical screening service but wrongly got the all-clear.

Moves are to get under way in the coming days to secure the names and addresses of these women and see how many match those who had screening with CervicalCheck.

A look-back will be ordered into the cases of individual women who had tests with CervicalCheck, HSE chief Tony O’Brien revealed.

Kerri Clough-Gorr, head of the National Cancer Registry, told the Irish Independent yesterday that 2,346 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer between 2008 and 2015.

Of these 589 have passed away, 517 of whom died from cervical cancer.

“We can process the data for CervicalCheck quickly as long as we have an official order from the Minister for Health to do so on a specified-use basis,” she added.

Obstetrician Dr Peter McKenna told the Oireachtas Health Committee he believed many of this group would tend to be older and would not have had tests through CervicalCheck.

It is the latest development in the cervical screening scandal that led to thousands of worried women flooding CervicalCheck amid fears about the accuracy of their smear result.

The screening body previously said it knew of only 1,482 women who developed cervical cancer since 2008. It was notified by hospital doctors.

Internal audits showing 208 women had incorrect tests were carried out but 162 women were not aware of these reports.

They confirm they had a false negative test result before developing cancer.

HSE official Patrick Lynch said efforts were still under way to try to track down all of the 162 women who had not been