If we can’t measure excess deaths, even more people will die

AT THE start of the first lockdown in 2020, the Irish Mail on Sunday warned that with all hospital accommodation given over to Covid treatment, routine screening and testing for cancers and other medical conditions would lead to needless, premature deaths.

That has now proved to be the case. Incredibly, though, we do not know just how many excess deaths there have been when compared to previous averages. The startling fact is that we have no way of accurately evaluating the scale of these deaths.

The country could bring vast resources to its aid in the emergency situation of combating a pandemic and, in the global context, the response was a success here, despite a few missteps along the way. But, seemingly, it is the same story as always in this country: we cannot govern outside a crisis.

We are revealing this week that the State cannot get an accurate handle on how many excess deaths there have been due to cancers and other conditions. Basic information, one would think. Our inability to measure this and have a functioning system to let us know how many more people are dying because of problems stored up due to the pandemic, is unacceptable. It also gives oxygen to the false claims of anti-vaccination agitators who will claim the deaths are related to the jabs.

Disinformation flourishes in a vacuum. You cannot suspend the functioning of a regular health service for two years and not expect there to be a reckoning. Ignoring this by not even measuring excess deaths will only lead to more fatalities.

Fallout could be contained and managed if accurate statistics were available, and resources allocated to effectively identify people most at risk.

Professor Mark Lawler of Queen’s University said that the number of excess deaths runs anywhere from 500 to thousands, and that those who missed diagnoses during the pandemic face a race against time to be properly screened and treated. We have many screening services in place already – cervical, breast, colon and diabetic retinopathy among them – but those programmes must be extended into the wider community to test for other conditions that have been missed.

If cancer is detected early, it is survivable. That is why we must know how many people have had it, and how many have died as result. That cannot be done by paperwork.

Whatever the Department of Health needs to do to fix this, it must do soon. Information is crucial. If you can’t measure something, you can’t manage it.