Government has blood on his hands, says Stephen Teap.

political analyst · 08-12-2022 4:21pm #1

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2022/1208/1340692-stephen-teap/

Is Stephen Teap's statement correct?

Was the government aware that American labs didn't examine cervical smears in the same way as they would have been done on our side of the Atlantic?

It has to be asked whether CervicalCheck gave women who underwent smear tests a false sense of security. Would it have been better to let women decide on their own initiative to undergo smear tests instead of establishing CervicalCheck, given that women might instead have known deep down whether they were at risk of having cervical cancer, i.e. women's intuition.

xxxxxxl · 08-12-2022 4:25pm

It should never had been outsourced it's penny pinching and cost peoples lives. They always have an excuse to why it's not currently done here. It's cost that is all.

Jequ0n · 08-12-2022 4:29pm

I can’t believe you dared to misgender the government.

mumo3 · 08-12-2022 4:34pm

There's going to be more of these cases IMO. As a women who goes through this process and have been called back after my smear was checked by one of these American labs, this is a horrible and worrying set up. We get our results back and they tell us we are fine, but in the back of our minds, we don't trust them any more.

They can diagnose cervical cancer early, through smear test due to the changes in your cells, but I only discovered after my most recent smear, they no longer check your cells, unless you test positive for the HPV virus!!

It's not just a government issue, there are a lot of people involved in these cover ups. Doctors found out Vicky Pelan's results had come back wrong and that's what caused the delay in her diagnosis and yet they still didn't disclose this to her, she discovered this from reading her own file her while the doctor left the room.

People need to be held accountable for this carry on.

TheChizler · 08-12-2022 4:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971536#Comment_119971536

They can diagnose cervical cancer early, through smear test due to the changes in your cells, but I only discovered after my most recent smear, they no longer check your cells, unless you test positive for the HPV virus!!

Cervical check never diagnosed cancer, the smear test was just a screen for cells that indicated a higher risk of cancer in the future. If they found risky cells the person would be sent for further investigation. The current process follows a similar concept, it's incredibly unlikely for someone to get cervical cancer unless they have HPV as HPV is its main (only?) cause.

Pawwed Rig · 08-12-2022 4:49pm

All governments have blood on their hands.

Any decision on resourcing one area of health over another will potentially cause deaths. Not excusing them in this case but the HSE is regularly in court due to deaths of someone or other due to their failings. We have a basket case of a health system that causes many needless deaths.

Furze99 · 08-12-2022 4:50pm

Whilst you can understand his resentment, yes he is being somewhat OTT. The Health Service is like the Education System - amorphous and designed to cater for the needs of the majority. Individuals can and do come out worse sometimes as neither can be all things to all people. I'm sure there are many others who fall through the cracks in the health system but we don't hear much about them as often, as their voices are scattered and weak, unlike other strong campaigning groups.

Potatoeman · 08-12-2022 5:37pm

This whole thing reminds me of the blood transfusion disaster and Noonan’s role in it.

SEPT 23 1989 · 08-12-2022 5:48pm

the sociopaths running the show care little for dead women

Astartes · 08-12-2022 7:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971806#Comment_119971806

Should have gone private lol!

Thats the attitude.

Geuze · 08-12-2022 10:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971536#Comment_119971536

Please be careful what you write.

Screening is not a diagnostic tool.

Vicky Phelan's diagnosis was not delayed.

Geuze · 08-12-2022 11:00pm

This explains the audit process:

https://twitter.com/Care2much18/status/1594302103111217156

xxxxxxl · 09-12-2022 12:58am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119972904#Comment_119972904

What's the point of them then why advised to get one ? My partner used to get letters informing they need to be screened.

Gusser09 · 09-12-2022 1:07am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971536#Comment_119971536

Its almost impossible develop cervical cancer if you dont have hpv. Its the most accurate test.

I think that is clearly explained in your screening invite.

Its terrible they way these cases were handled. Shocking.

I wont get into criticising the screening as it saves a hell of a lot of lives and we need to ensure confidence in it.

However there are a lot of people in power that need to hang there heads in shame. Tony holohan being one.

Does the govt have blood on its hands? Stephen Teape has earned the right to have that opinion.

Gatling · 09-12-2022 11:25am

Seriously.

"Would it have been better to let women decide on their own initiative to undergo smear tests instead of establishing CervicalCheck, given that women might instead have known deep down whether they were at risk of having cervical cancer, i.e. women's intuition"

Women's intuition stupid comment

political analyst · 09-12-2022 4:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119974265#Comment_119974265

Have you never heard of women's intuition?

donaghs · 09-12-2022 5:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119971762#Comment_119971762

Giving someone a life-threatening disease accidentally, is somewhat different from failing to detect a life-threatening disease in a screening.

The nub of the issue with the Cervical scandal as far as I can see it, is not that the result came back false for some women (I think this is always a possibility), but rather that this was detected in an Audit soon after - and the women were not immediately informed - only years later.

In the sense that these women could have survived, or more likely lived a bit longer with treatment, the government does have blood on its hands.

Cluedo Monopoly · 09-12-2022 5:01pm

He is 100% right and fought hard to get them to confirm what he already knew.

MrMusician18 · 09-12-2022 5:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119975838#Comment_119975838

If you accept that screening will have false negatives which these women received, then the clinical outcome would have remained the same.

My fear was that the misinformation surrounding Cervical Check would result in the programme getting cancelled as it appears to create a liability for false negatives. I'm glad that hasn't happened - but if no screening programme had existed, would the Government have this blood on its hands?

political analyst · 10-12-2022 12:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119975838#Comment_119975838

The issue was about doctors' duty of candour towards patients, not the failure to tell the women about the audit of smear tests.

Even Vicky's solicitor, in an article he wrote for the Sunday Indo, acknowledged that non-disclosure of the audit didn't cause the women's deaths.

CatFromHue · 10-12-2022 2:01pm

In all screening programs there will be false positives and false negatives. This doesn't mean they've been negligently read though as two screens read on the same day, under the same conditions, in the same lab, by two separate people can give different results. It just shows how subjective reading the slides can be, and in 70-90% of the time they get it right.

There was an audit done as part of a quality improvement process and this picked up on the false negatives. Because of the difficulty of looking back at slides that you already know the outcome to this process is termed educational. The disclosure of these false negatives to the women involved was handled very badly. Most other countries don't do disclosure for this and the women were all already receiving treatment.

All the labs involved had false negatives, even the Irish one.

Scally did find that one of the labs, CPL, outsourced some of their work to other labs that the HSE did not know about. CPL has not been a provider to the HSE since 2013 and he didn't say whether there were issues with their outsourced slides. He does point out that all labs have performance which is acceptable in their countries. I'm not sure if this is in reference to CPL and their outsourced slides, the report is a bit unclear here.

There's a section on retrospective bias in Scally's report and he repeatedly points out the difficulty in looking back at a slide from years ago that you already know the outcome to.

After the scandal there was a review to compare Cervical Check to other countries similar programs and it was found that our results were in line with international norms.

There is an awful tragedy involved in cervical cancer and people who have a terminal illness. Unfortunately the method the courts used to distinguish between the acceptable margin of error and negligence would never be accepted under any scientific program as it was so weak. At the time there were very justified fears in the scientific community for the viability of screening in Ireland altogether once this story broke. Finding that one of the labs had outsourced some of their work doesn't mean negligent reading of the slides involved.

rock22 · 10-12-2022 3:55pm

@political analyst asked "Was the government aware that American labs didn't examine cervical smears in the same way as they would have been done on our side of the Atlantic?"

The answer is yes, the minister was well aware of the difference in screening in Ireland/UK and US

@SEPT 23 1989 wrote "the sociopaths running the show care little for dead women"

I believe the Minister who made the decision was a woman

VillageIdiot71 · 14-12-2022 1:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119972993#Comment_119972993

Excellent link, really brings out how the HSE end up looking like the bad guys for doing the right thing.

On the OP, I think the issue is we all accept a husband will rage at the world for the loss of his wife. The problem is when that rage gets accepted as if it was serious commentary.

Who would have the courage to say "Sorry for your trouble, and we've all lost people who are dear to us so we do understand your sense of loss. But no-one has blood on their hands as a result of initiating a programme that has saved many women's lives. I understand that's little comfort for the fact this programme, that was helpful to others, didn't help your wife."

What would you say to someone who said that? Don't be a dick? Don't be worse than a dick?

Government has blood on his hands, says Stephen Teap.

Comments