Decision to disband CervicalCheck Steering Committee insensitive

Issued : Tuesday 26 February, 2019

Labour Party Health spokesperson, Alan Kelly TD, has described the Department of Health as insensitive to the needs of women and their families at the centre of the CervicalCheck scandal.

This comes as the Department of Health made a decision to wind up the CervicalCheck Steering Committee.

Deputy Kelly:

“The bizarre decision by the department of Health to wind up the CervicalCheck Steering Committee with no prior warning to the membership is completely insensitive to the needs of women and families. 

“This Committee was established to make improvements to screening and oversee the recommendations of the Scally Report. With over 87,000 women waiting to get CervicalCheck results back and many of the recommendations from Dr.Scally yet to be implemented, the need for this group is far from over.

“We’re still waiting on Dr.Scally’s next report to be published, which will no doubt have even more recommendations to be implemented. So it makes no sense to disband this group before work even commences. 

“The sudden announcement that this group would cease to function has rightly caused a lot of upset and annoyance to the patient advocates and the women they represent. Women and their families at the centre of this scandal have been left down by the State and for this group to oversee change to be disbanded is extremely disappointing.

“It is completely unacceptable that the decision to wind up this Committee was apparently made unknown to the Minister for Health. I will be contacting him today to find out who thought this was a good decision and why.

“We need to do better for the women at the centre of this scandal and ensuring their patient advocates have a continued voice at the table implementing change is very important.”

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