Two hospitals are told to review screening process

Two hospitals have been advised by the Department of Health to review their procedures in relation to cervical smear screening, after it was revealed that some staff who worked for Claymon Laboratories were also employed by it.

Last week it emerged that Claymon processed some 2,000 smear tests following which 68 women were incorrectly told that their smear tests were clear.

Sources said that only a very small number of consultants and technicians employed by Claymon also worked in the hospital sector.

The Irish Times understands there were two teams, each comprising a consultant and a technician, one in a private hospital and the other in a public hospital which had also undertaken testing for Claymon.

The hospitals were told by the Department late last week to consider their laboratory procedures. The public hospital was named as a well-known Dublin facility by a Sunday newspaper, but it refused to confirm or deny the report yesterday. The private hospital is understood to be in the Cork area.

Claymon was contracted in 1997 by the North Western Health Board to process smear tests after a backlog of samples taken at Sligo General Hospital was encountered.

Ms Bernie Malone MEP has criticised the Department for its "failure to adequately monitor the delivery of health services". She said the issue was "potentially the most serious of the many scandals which are besetting our political, social and legal systems.

"The Department is clearly unable to do its job. It failed in relation to the Blood Transfusion Service, it has made a complete mess of what should be a flagship of our health services, Tallaght Hospital, and it now appears that it does not monitor or accredit private laboratory testing centres."

Ms Malone also criticised the Department for using unmonitored services and claimed it could not establish whether public employees were using public facilities "to do nixers, for which they were paid by a private company which in turn was paid by the public health service".

"This is a matter of life and death for some women and requires the immediate attention of the Government. The Department of Health has demonstrated its failures all too often. The Minister must take responsibility for this failure," she concluded.