McDonald calls on HSE to stop ‘drip feeding’ information about cervical cancer scandal

The CervicalCheck controversy is a “game of cat and mouse being played by the HSE”, according to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.

Ms McDonald called on the HSE to stop “drip feeding” information and to place all details in relation to CervicalCheck on the public record.

“We need accountability. Women are being left in the dark. Information is being withheld from them,” she said.

She also dismissed claims that the issue was “a communications glitch”, saying “a decision was made to withhold information.”

More than 1,500 cervical cancer cases were not audited

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HSE director general Tony O’Brien’s position is untenable, Ms McDonald insisted. “As leader of the HSE he needs to be held to account. It is a mistake for the Government to stand by him.”

Ms McDonald called for speedy contact to be made with the women involved and with the families of those who are deceased. “They need full support and to be given answers, not left in limbo in this disrespectful space.

“Time is of the essence.”

She said it might be necessary to have more than one inquiry running parallel.

“The game of cat and mouse being played by the HSE is still on,” she told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Wednesday.

On the same programme, Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell said that a helpline is not enough.

She warned that the HSE “ticks all the boxes” when it comes to complex structures, but it does not seem capable of providing answers despite “not being short of managers”.

Ms O’Connell said that in most corporate structures if there is a problem it is reviewed then there is action and reform, but “a lot that goes on in a normal corporate structure is not going on here”.

Meanwhile, a Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) “root and branch review” is the right course of action “as a starting point”, says Fianna Fáil’s health spokesperson Stephen Donnelly.

“What we need is the truth and we need the truth quickly,” he said.

“A Commission of Inquiry will give us the truth but over several years. A Hiqa investigation as a starting point is the right thing to do.

Speaking on Newstalk, Mr Donnelly said: “They have the confidence of the public; they have done it with Portlaoise, they did it with Savita Halappanavar. They have a good track record of being robust.

“Will it need to be expanded in time? Maybe, but we need to get to the truth and we need to get there quickly.

“Hiqa is the right way to start.”

However, Labour’s health spokesperson Alan Kelly said he believed a Hiqa-led inquiry would be a “waste of time.”

Such an inquiry would have no powers of compellability, he said. “They don’t have to answer questions.”

Mr Kelly called for a “scoping exercise” with tight reports in a modular way.

“The Minister has no choice but to go down this road. The Minister doesn’t know the full details or where this will go.”

More than 1,500 women who developed cervical cancer did not have their cases reviewed by CervicalCheck, it has emerged, as the Government moved towards a commission of inquiry into the controversy.

Minister for Health Simon Harris confirmed “a considerable number” of women with the condition had not been subjected to an audit of their screening history.

The revelation, described by Labour’s Alan Kelly as a “bombshell”, raises the prospect that hundreds more women could find their smear tests were misread.

The Minister has now ordered that audits be carried out in these cases, where possible – leaving open the possibility that reviewers will come to the conclusion that some of these women should also have received an earlier intervention.

To date, it has emerged that 208 women with cervical cancer whose cases were audited should have had an earlier intervention.