LEO VARADKAR is set to offer an official State apology over the failures of the CervicalCheck provided to women in Ireland.
More than 1,000 women and families have been affected by the failings of the CervicalCheck crisis, which came to light as part of Vicky Phelan’s High Court case.
In 2011, Phelan underwent a smear test for cervical cancer that showed no abnormalities. However, in 2013 she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
A subsequent internal CervicalCheck review found the original result to be incorrect, but Phelan was not informed of this fact until 2017.
Phelan’s case was subsequently settled in a US court for €2.5 million though without admission of liability from the defendant Clinical Pathology Laboratories Inc, Austin, Texas.
A 2014 review subsequently discovered 14 other women were also found to have 'false-negative' test results.
On April 26, 2018 the HSE confirmed that 206 women had developed cervical cancer after having a misdiagnosed CervicalCheck smear test.
(Vicky Phelan / Twitter)Of this number, 162 had not been informed that the initial results were incorrect
Dr Grainne Flannelly, CervicalCheck's clinical director resigned in the wake of the scandal after it emerged that in 2017, she told a gynaecologist not to advise women about the re-evaluated test results but to instead file the.
While all of the women involved in the scandal knew they had cervical cancer, in an unspecified number of cases the original slides from their checks were incorrectly read.
The 221+ group representing many of the women and families affected by the scandal has said it will be closely analysing the content and delivery of the State apology.
Phelan is due to be present in the Dáil chamber alongside key members Stephen Teape and Lorraine Walsh.
They are hopeful that the apology will help heal the pain caused by the scandal.
See More: Cervical Cancer, CervicalCheck, Leo Varadkar
