There was a significant increase in the numbers of Irish women presenting for cervical smear tests last year after the death from cervical cancer of UK celebrity Jade Goody, according to a report out today.
The annual report from The Well Woman Centre in Dublin says that over the years the annual number of smear tests taken in its clinics in the capital has been fairly stable but in 2009 there was a 15 per cent increase in the number of patients who had cervical smear tests taken compared to the average number for the previous seven years.
"The surge in demand for cervical smear tests in the first half of 2009 coincided with advertising of the programme by CervicalCheck, and also huge levels of coverage of the illness and death from cervical cancer of a media celebrity in the UK," it said.
In March 2009 - when Ms Goody died - Well Woman's three clinics in Dublin saw over 1,335 women for smear tests. However since then numbers have dropped off and Well Woman has blamed this on a change of policy by the national cervical screening programme CervicalCheck.
The programme became available to women aged 25 to 60 years in September 2008, and at first it offered free screening to any woman in that age group.
"In September 2009 the programme changed its policy and only women who had an invitation letter or were already in the programme and needed follow up, could have a programme smear test (with a limited number of exceptions). This caused a dramatic drop in the number of tests taken in the last few months of 2009," Well Woman's annual report states.
It means women cannot turn up at their GP for what is described as opportunistic screening any more, unless they agree to pay for the laboratory analysis of their smear test themselves.
Alison Began, chief executive of Well Woman, said its unfortunate that CervicalCheck now operates solely on a pre-registration basis. "We hope, in the interests of women's long-term health, that this change can be revisited," she said.
The report also refers to the many ways in which the recession is impacting women's health. It says up to one in five of the 2,000 of so women who presented to Well Woman for pregnancy counselling last year cited financial concerns as the main reason why they were seeking information on having a termination.
It also says: "The recession may also impact on our general counselling service as clients may defer seeking therapeutic support for issues due to financial constraints." Furthermore it refers to a dramatic drop in the number of people presenting for full STI screening at Well Woman clinics last year.
Screening involves blood tests and swab tests to check for sexually transmitted infections such as Chlamydia, gonorrhoea, HIV, hepatitis B and C and syphilis and clients must pay for this service.
"The drop in demand for full screens may reflect the economic climate rather than behavioural change reducing medical need," the report says.