HSE doesn’t know if any of 46 women has died

THE HSE admits it does not know if any of the 46 additional women it is currently auditing have died.

It confirmed to the PAC this week that on top of the 209 women given false all-clear smear tests by CervicalCheck, a further 46 were being audited and 12 of those are being completed.

The admission comes as the Department of Health prepares to ask an international panel of experts to examine the 1,482 smear test results reviewed as part of the controversial CervicalCheck audit as well as all the cases of women diagnosed with cervical cancer up until the end of 2017.

This weekend the HSE revealed for the first time that the 209 misread smear test results were part of 280 highlighted by health officials in two controversial HSE memos in July 2016.

Asked specifically whether the HSE is changing the number of women who have died, the health authority dodged the question, then admitted it didn’t have the details.

A HSE spokesman said: ‘The CervicalCheck programme does not always hold details on the current clinical status of a woman who has had cervical cancer. Where we have to contact a woman about a result of an audit, CervicalCheck will at that point confirm the details about the woman. CervicalCheck will contact and use a number of sources to confirm these details about the woman. These sources include: hospitals, GPs and the General Registration Office, in order to ensure that CervicalCheck has the most accurate information about a woman’s circumstances before they or their family are contacted.’

Meanwhile, solicitor Cian O’Carroll, who is representing some of the women whose smear test results were misread by laboratories in America said: ‘This is new information… we hadn’t realised that there were people whose audit had not been completed.

‘Is this the last of them? Are there going to be more coming from the 1,482?’