Vicky Phelan: She didn’t want accolades or broken promises. Just action and change

Vicky Phelan refused to sell her soul for a settlement.

She would not accept the institutional silence and could not remain silent.

Her courage captivated us.

Yes, this amazing woman may have been dying but her spirit and determination was life itself.

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“There are no winners here today. I am terminally ill and there is no cure for my cancer,” she said on the steps of the High Court after reaching a settlement without liability with the US-based laboratory over her incorrect smear test. And on that day in 2018, despite the devastating prognosis, she became a most unlikely crusader for Irish women, their medical rights and dignity.

A true heroine.

Vicky touched hearts, concentrated minds and changed many lives for the better.

The mother of two fought for the €2.5 million which would help fund ongoing treatment costs and provide for her children, but when a confidentiality clause was presented as part of the settlement, she refused to sign it. That brave decision to disregard her own private wellbeing and fight on for truth saw her expose what would become the CervicalCheck scandal.

As a consultant, quoted in the subsequent Scally report, blithely remarked to a woman demanding to know about her test results (misread in an American laboratory, discovered back in Ireland to be inaccurate and then sat on by the HSE for years along with over 200 others): “What difference does it make?”

But Vicky knew the difference between what was right and what was wrong. Her selflessness improved lives and saved lives. She made a huge difference.

Her tenacity led to a State apology in the Dáil from then taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who apologised “to the women and their loved ones who suffered from a litany of failures in how cervical screening in our country operated over many years”.

When Vicky died on Monday at the age of 48, the President and the Taoiseach led the outpouring of tributes. Politicians from all parties crowded on to social media to mark her passing. Members of the public took to the airwaves to express sorrow at her death and honour her life.

We had lived the highs and lows of her efforts to stay one step in advance of cancer, her fight to get the drug Pembro made available to women in a similar situation, the good days, the bad days, the chemo sessions, the trips to the United States for radical treatment.

We willed her on as yet another deadline was outlasted. Still with us, still campaigning, still looking good.

Never say never, yet we knew time was running out. There was a book and a television documentary. Over half a million people tuned in to watch Vicky get a standing ovation when she appeared on the Late Late Show last November.

When Dr Gabriel Scally’s report into the scandal was released, it contained a frightening catalogue of how women were patronised and kept in the dark about their own medical conditions by senior clinicians. He noted that the majority of these experts were men. The system was broken, he noted, making 50 recommendations on how to fix it.

The Government promised to act on all of them because “now, in the words of Vicky Phelan, I want something good to come out of all of this” Leo Varadkar told the Dáil.

“We are sorry for failures of clinical governance, failures of leadership and management, failure to tell the whole truth and do so in a timely manner.

“The humiliation, disrespect and deceit. The false reassurance. The attempts to play down the seriousness of this debacle” is what he told Vicky and the women and families broken by this abject failure of properly running a live-saving healthcare programme for women.

Fifty recommendations – Vicky Phelan won’t be around now to insist all of them are implemented, but others, such as fellow campaigners Stephen Teap and Lorraine Walsh, will continue to advocate for better outcomes.

She wrote these words two years ago after the death of her fellow cervical cancer sufferer, Ruth Morrissey.

“I don’t want your apologies.

“I don’t want your tributes.

“I don’t want your aide de camp at my funeral.

“I don’t want your accolades or your broken promises.

“I want action.

“I want change.

“I want accountability.”

In that apology of October 2019, Varadkar talked of a healthcare service which treats patients with honesty and respect.

“One that is never paternalistic – doctor doesn’t always know best. We must always share full information with our patients, admit mistakes, and put the person first. There is no information about a patient that the patient should not know. No patient should ever feel stonewalled by the system. We should never act or fail to act out of fear of litigation or recrimination.”

Recent editions of the radio programme Liveline where women were queuing up to tell of their horrendous encounters with dismissive medics while struggling with menopause symptoms and trying to endure endometriosis indicate that the paternalistic approach is far from gone and that Vicky Phelan’s work is far from done.

Others have been inspired. They will do it now in her memory.

Vicky will not be forgotten.