Victims of this scandal deserve so much more

BE kind, the saying goes, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. It is difficult to conceive of a more harrowing struggle than that being endured by the terminally ill Emma Mhic Mhathúna. She has just revealed: “I found out today the cancer has spread to my brain, I’m not scared just heartbroken. I love my life, my children and all of you, my new-found friends.”

The cervical test scandal has rightly prompted an outpouring of public emotion. But the women caught in this vortex of anxiety and suffering are still having to battle to get answers.

They are still facing legal barriers at every turn, despite being assured by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar that they would not be dragged through the courts. The torturous pace of investigations and prolonged delays, in testing and agonising waits for results, are greatly adding to the trauma.

Yesterday, it emerged the number of women affected by the CervicalCheck debacle has risen to 221, and 18 women have died. We also learned that a planned review of about 3,000 smear test slides had yet to even start, while some 80 women have claimed they had trouble in getting access to vital information.

Clearly, there is no prospect of the overall review of the screening controversy being completed as promised by the end of the summer. Time is not on the side of these patients. The State is obliged to help these women, whom it has so cruelly failed. Yet the reaction so far has been more shameful than reassuring.

A compassionate response requires more than flinging money around or calling for inquiries. It means actually taking care of women who have been traumatised, and making sure such a dark chain of events can never happen again. Despite the fact that time is so critical, such a response is still awaited.