Cervical cancer campaigner Vicky Phelan’s passion for the principle of full disclosure in the area of public health has ensured this is now “front and centre”, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
Paying tribute in the Dáil to the woman who exposed the CervicalCheck controversy and campaigned for full disclosure, Mr Martin pledged that the Patient Safety Bill, which was initiated in 2019 and makes such disclosure mandatory, will be brought “to a conclusion before the end of the year”.
An amendment to the legislation on full disclosure of patient information will be introduced at report stage and Mr Martin said they would work “might and main” to pass the legislation before Christmas, he told Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.
The Dáil stood for a minute’s silence in her honour after tributes by party and group leaders.
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Ms McDonald, who described Ms Phelan as a “force of nature in the pursuit of justice” added that “she was fearless, relentless, she was unstoppable”.
The Sinn Féin leader said “the best way to honour Vicki’s memory” was to complete her work, and the testing of screening samples back to Ireland.
Raising the issue during leaders’ questions after tributes to Ms Phelan, Ms McDonald said that “testing continues to be outsourced to labs in the United States at the centre of the cervical check scandal” and currently 85% of cervical checks sample testing is outsourced abroad.
Asking about the National Screening Laboratory in the Coombe hospital, she claimed the Minister for Health had for seven months “failed to progress” the Patient Safety Bill and “again the women of Ireland are left waiting”.
She also called for the “reinstatement of the cancer orders review of screening which was suspended four and a half years ago”.
Social Democrats joint leader Róisín Shortall said the Coombe screening programme was “only screening private smear tests”. She added that public screening stopped after the cyber attack on the HSE but private work continued.
She added that 160,000 smear test slides have been sent to the US in the first seven months of this year.
Ms Shortall said there was a commitment in the wake of the CervicalCheck failures that analysis of these slides would be carried out in total in Ireland.
“Four years later that hasn’t happened,” she said, adding that Ms Phelan was “adamant that action was important to her, not platitudes and not empty promises”.
The Taoiseach said the new National Laboratory Screening Service at the Coombe will become operational by the end of the year. He said building work was completed in October.
Mr Martin said that “the new laboratory is designed to ultimately become the main laboratory” for CervicalCheck services but he said a second source would be necessary “for resilience”.
He said “it would take time before you would have the sufficiency to have full national coverage”, in order to recruit the proper expertise and personnel.
He stressed in relation to the Patient Safety Bill: “I want this legislation concluded by the end of the year”.
Mr Martin said “Ms Phelan’s remarkable advocacy for women has shifted the culture and has made a very positive difference” and “forced a fundamental re-evaluation” of disclosure.
He agreed that the work of Ms Phelan is reflected in legislation in the “framework and architecture” of screening in Ireland and in the renewal of an audit of the screening programme.
During tributes to Ms Phelan, Leas Cheann Comhairle Catherine Connolly pointed out to leaders the late campaigner’s comments that she “wasn’t seeking praise” or “false promises, but she was seeking action”.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said Ms Phelan “probably was one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met. There is something about here that was hard to define. She is an example to us all, a woman of limitless strength, courage and compassion.”
Mr Varadkar acknowledged that without her the CervicalCheck non-disclosure battle would never have come to light. “Thanks to her advocacy we can start to build a better culture in our health service, one that treats patients with respect, which is never paternalistic, gives them all the information about them that is available, and which always tells the truth.”
No restrictions
Earlier on Tuesday, at a press conference in Government buildings, the Taoiseach said he believed there should be no restrictions on access to information on one’s health.
Asked about the high number of private settlements, including non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), made between the State Claims Agency and those who were not given correct diagnoses for cervical cancer, Mr Martin said it had been a principle in that organisation that that clause would be invoked.
However, he added: “I believe that with everything involving access to information, a wider cohort should be given access.”
Ms Phelan had also supported ‘dying with dignity’ legislation. Mr Martin said that issue was being examined, but pointed out there were “different perspectives on that and it is a very complex issue”.
Asked about the low uptake for applying to the tribunal which has been set up for women who were given the wrong diagnosis, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that the whole intention of the tribunal was not to retraumatise women by dragging them through the courts and the adversarial system.
She accepted the number was lower than anybody would like.
“There is continued open engagement and [the Minister for Health] is willing to engage as the process [continues]. It’s still technically at the early sages
“If it is not working, it is clearly something we will have to look at, as Government as a whole
“The idea is to keep it out of the courts and remove the adversarial element,” she said.
