By Charlotte Webster Medical staff who make professional errors must be held accountable for their Vicky Phelan has told politicians. Phelan, who faces an uncertain future after being given wrong smear tests has stated that she does n
Speaking before the Public Accounts Committee- one of two committees investigating the Cervical Check controversy- Phelan expressed a wish to ensure accountability in terms of consequences for those medics who are so negligent as to give incorrect smear tests to patients. Her desires are very reasonable and should go without saying.
Ms Phelan, who was awarded €2.5m after she received an incorrect smear test result, told TDs and Senators that she wanted to ensure that what happened to her could never happen again.
The fallout from the controversy has led to two officials in CervicalCheck steping down, followed by the resignation of HSE Director General Tony O’Brien.
With a government inquiry about the matter still ongoing, Ms Phelan told PAC members she was not looking for revenge after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, just accountability.
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PROTOCOLS
She expressed a desire to see sensible protocols in place and sanctions for people who make mistakes. Her request is a common sense requirement calling for the government and the medical profession to implement responsible measures to keep those in the medical profession on their toes when making diagnosis. The government and the authorities in the medical profession are usually shy to impose sanctions on doctors to avoid putting people off from the medical profession. Medics are valuable contributors to society, but also have a huge responsibility to apply their expertise carefully and thoroughly.
The mother-of-two called for a complete overhaul of the HSE so that people were held to account.
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She said: “I’m not interested in revenge. I want to see accountability” she said, before adding that patient safety was her priority.
“If I do die, I want it not to be in vain. I want protocols to be put in place and sanctions for people who make mistakes and that the HSE is overhauled from the ground up, so that people are held accountable and this will never happen again.”
Committee members are also heard from Stephen Teap, whose wife Irene was diagnosed with cancer in 2015, and died last year after two undisclosed false tests in 2010 and 2013.
Mr Teap said his wife would have gone public if she had got information about her incorrect smear tests before she died. Her cancerous 2010 test showed pre-cancerous cells, but she missed two opportunities for he cancer to be identified in the tests.
“Irene had two missed opportunities for cancer to be identified in her smear test, either one of which she would have been here with us today,” he said. Mr Teap called for more people in the HSE needed to step aside from their positions while an inquiry took place.
“It looks like information was clearly withheld now from the ministers,” he said.
“It seems to be that the people in these senior positions that knew about these memos in 2016 are the same people that are in senior positions today that need to be questioned.
“I don’t understand how they can sit in these positions while inquiries are going on. We have dead women here. We have women who have been given terminal diagnoses, death sentences.
“We’ve two people gone, but more need to go now. They need to step aside.”
EXCUSES
Amid the shame of the whole fiasco, the civil servant in the Department of Health made excuses for the decision not to tell the Minister for Health that women were being informed their smear tests had resulted in a false negative.
Jim Breslin told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health that a judgement had been made that the problem “wasn’t of sufficient scale” and was being dealt with in an appropriate fashion that it did not need to be escalated. Instead of assessing the judgement made critically, he sought to defend a useless excuse. According to him, an organisation as large and complex as the Health Service Executive cannot have all issues escalated to the minister.
It could have most issues escalated to the minister, and the minister of health should unmistakably have been informed about the awful blunder in the medical profession causing lives. More people should be stepping down over this whole affair, including Breslin, who should do the honourable thing and just go!
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