Hundreds take action over smear tests
Director criticised for ‘threat’ that payouts from mounting claims could put a stop to screening programme
THERE are 242 claims lodged against the HSE’s CervicalCheck programme to date over the alleged misreading of smears, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Out of the 242 cases, 197 are from women affected and 45 are from family members taking cases on behalf of women, according to the latest figures from the State Claims Agency.
A spokesman said: ‘The State Claims Agency does not act for the labs in these cases [they have separate legal representation]; the data relate to claims in which the HSE/ CervicalCheck is a co-defendant with one or more labs.’
‘Proceedings have commenced in 186 of these cases. To date, 28 claims have been concluded – 21 cases resolved by way of settlement/mediation, one by court judgment and six were not pursued.’
Clinical director of CervicalCheck Dr Nóirín Russell, said earlier this week that there is a ‘very real risk’ that if the ongoing ‘environment’ of litigation doesn’t change ‘we won’t have a screening programme’ at all for women.
She said women’s trust in the HSE scheme has been eroded over the last couple of years.
This follows comments Dr Russell made in December in a letter to Aontú political party leader Peadar Tóibín after he called for a reexamination of CervicalCheck in the Dáil due to a high ‘mistake rate’ in the service. Dr Russell wrote to say it was ‘not factually correct to say that these were “mistakes” or “missed readings” or to suggest that they confirm evidence of negligence.
‘They are instead regrettable but expected findings in a cervical cancer screening programme,’ she wrote.
However, patient advocate and CervicalCheck steering committee member Lorraine Walsh said the narrative from Dr Russell was putting ‘blame’ on women and families who were let down by CervicalCheck for lack of uptake in screening.
She added that Dr Russell should be aiming to provide a reason to trust in the service instead of insinuating that women who are taking cases where negligence may be a factor in their diagnosis, are in the wrong.
Ms Walsh told the MoS: ‘If the HSE could actually just draw a line, accept and say, “Yes, Gabriel Scally did a review and it was a system that was doomed to fail.
‘There wasn’t correct oversight. There wasn’t correct auditing. There were so many things wrong with it.
‘And as a result of that there are women that have been let down by it but going forward we have a whole new system – we’ve changed things, we’ve HPV screening now and this is much more accurate and while there are limitations to it, the likelihood is there would be less abnormalities missed. But they’re just not doing that, and they just keep complaining that we won’t have any screening system.
‘On one side the HSE is hunting women into the grave through the courts and on the other it’s saying all these women are dying because of the limitations of screening. Women will have fear because of this idea that the limitation of screening is the reason these women are dying because of this narrative which CervicalCheck are going with, not because of the women who have been let down.’
Solicitor Cian O’Carroll, who has represented many women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal including Vicky Phelan, Emma Mhic Mhathuna and Ruth Morrissey told the MoS he considered Dr Russell’s comments a ‘threat’.
He said: ‘I think her attitude to the established failings in CervicalCheck is unlikely to encourage improvements. And I think to date any of the remarks that I’ve seen in recent months have been to question the High Court and Supreme Court decisions in the Morrissey case, to declare that the judges and presumably the rest of the legal profession, don’t understand the limitations of screening.
‘And then to suggest with this vague threat that if the – her word – “payouts” continue that ultimately it will become more expensive than the screening program, and it would mean the end of screening, which is more than a threat. That if you don’t stop suing us for negligence that causes death, we’ll pull the whole program, and good luck to the women of Ireland.
‘Apart from that being outrageous, it’s a falsehood.
‘First of all, I think we can safely say that the Supreme Court has shown that it does understand the difference between diagnosis and screening.
‘Secondly, the court made it very clear that it was not applying its standard to screening; it was applying the medical profession’s standard to screening.
‘And thirdly, it’s the laboratories, who bear the cost of the litigation. It’s the women who bear the true cost, with their lives and with their health, but the financial consequence
‘Women paid the cost of this with their lives’
of this negligence is borne by laboratories. So, why then create a false impression that somehow or other screening is paying for this, or the cost would result in the ending of screening in Ireland for women.
‘So, I just don’t understand where Nóirín Russell is going with this kind of attitude. And I think she’d be a lot better served if she read the Morrissey judgments and asked herself, “Can we do something better here in screening in Ireland? Can we improve?” because the numbers of women dying through negligence, not through ordinary screening errors, not through the limitations of screening, but through carelessness, are growing.’
When asked, CervicalCheck did not respond to Mr O’Carroll and Ms Walsh’s comments.
Meanwhile, the family of Joan Lucey, 73, a retired nurse who died from cervical cancer last weekend have settled her High Court case against the HSE and two laboratories.
Mrs Lucey was a retired nurse from Dingle, Co. Kerry, who died just days before mediation was to begin in her case.
Mediation had been requested on two separate occasions by Mrs Lucey’s solicitors due to her deteriorating condition but the defence had refused.
Mrs Lucey’s case centred on two alleged misreadings, misinterpretation or misreporting of smear
‘They should say the system was doomed’
from 2011. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2019.
The case is against the HSE, Clinical Pathology Laboratories Incorporated with headquarters in Austin, Texas and MedLab Pathology Ltd with registered offices at Sandyford Business Park Dublin.
The case was settled without an admission of liability.