MLAs Stand with Ladies with Letters in Their Call for a Statutory Public Inquiry
This week marks two years since 17,500 women in the Southern Health & Social Care Trust (SHSCT) area received letters advising them that their cervical screening results (smear tests) were being reviewed. The letters were issued following a report by the Royal College of Pathologists (RCP), which uncovered serious failings in cervical screening carried out by the SHSCT over a 13-year period.
On Tuesday 7th October, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) stood with our clients Ladies with Letters at Stormont to support their call for a statutory public inquiry into the scandal which denied ladies the opportunity for early detection and treatment of cervical cancer, a largely preventable disease. To date, it has cost two young mothers their lives, Erin Harbinson from Tandragee and Lynsey Courtney from Portadown. Eight other women whose smear tests were misread by screeners went on to develop cancer and a further 11 women’s tests were found to have pre-cancerous cells and required treatment.
Enda McGarrity, Director at P.A. Duffy & Co Solicitors made the following statement:
‘Almost one year ago the Health Minister told Assembly Members that if a public inquiry was the only way to get to the truth of what happened in the cervical screening crisis, then he would ‘look positively’ on establishing such an Inquiry.
At that point, our clients Ladies with Letters, and the wider public, were told that the Department of Health had commissioned various expert reports and the need for an Inquiry would be reviewed following the publication of those reports. Ladies with Letters were told that those reports would be finished first by Easter, then before the start of the summer, and most recently, they learned at the Health Committee that DOH expected to publish reports by September.
And yet here we are – 2 years since ladies received their letters –still without reports and still, for the most part, without answers.
The content of those reports remains unknown. The efforts to resolve these issues internally by the Trust to date has left women with a feeling of being humoured and patronised when they ask reasonable questions such as:
How did screeners operate for so long without poor performance being identified and addressed?
What were the underlying reasons for the poor performance? Was it lack training? Was it lack of oversight? Was it something else?
Why was there a delay in investigating these issues after they were reported to the Trust’s leadership?
Why has the Consultant who blew the whistle on the scandal been treated in the way that he has?
Why have efforts been made to undermine credible claims in relation to underperforming cervical screening services within other Health Care Trusts?
It is clear to Ladies with Letters that these questions, and many more besides, can only be comprehensively answered by establishing a thorough and independent investigation which places those who have suffered most at its heart. Ladies with Letters have patiently waited for answers to these questions, but they will not allow this can be kicked down the road any further.
The legal and moral obligation to establish an Inquiry rests with the Health Minister. Our clients call on the Minister to recognise that those obligations can only be met by working with Ladies with Letters to establish a fearless Inquiry with the purpose not only of identifying what went wrong in the past, but also what needs to be fixed for the future so that no woman has to experience what the Ladies with Letters have.
That is the legacy that the families of Erin Harbinson and Lynsey Courtney would wish for them to leave.
If you have been affected and feel you need legal advice on this issue, please contact us on 028 8772 2102 or email enquiries@paduffy.com