Letter to Minister of Health re Cervical Check response
We need to value expertise which comes from experience
I am writing to the Minister of Health, the Taoiseach and my party leader Eamon Ryan, to let them know how disappointed I am that over 2 years after the CervicalCheck scandal came to public notice and many years after the errors occurred, we are still putting State interests above the views of the women affected. This week the support group 221+ walked away from the discussions on the upcoming tribunal, stating they saw ‘no point’ in continuing the process.
I was particularly struck by Minister Donnelly’s comments that his priority was “to facilitate the least onerous process for the women and families affected.”
My background in the disability sector has taught me to value expertise which comes from experience and the women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal are experts by experience, however much they may prefer it to have been different.
Yet our current three party Government, the Green Party included, continue the failures of previous paternalistic governments by placing a higher value on legal expertise and the opinion of the ‘permanent government’, Department officials and the Attorney General. And women suffer. The ‘least onerous process for the women’ I dare to suggest, is the one that they have helped to design.
I can’t be silent. I understand I may attract claims of naivety or not fully understanding. Hands up – both apply. However, we have all witnessed the remarkable adaptations that our society and our Government have made in the face of a global pandemic. A change in perspective, matched with an urgency and will to make something happen, is a formidable force. Let’s apply that force to the CervicalCheck situation.
To be clear, I have not spoken to any of the women of the 221+ group. I considered reaching out to them but decided against it – I have nothing beyond my voice as a local representative, a woman and user of the CervicalCheck screening, to add to their already protracted deliberations. If any one of these women would like to speak with me, I will gladly listen.
I am sure that many of the women who can move on with their lives want to be allowed to do just that. I am also aware that many women cannot move on, and are now represented and sorely missed, by grieving families.
I do not want to hear protection of the taxpayer used as an excuse. I will be saying to Michael Martin, Stephen Donnelly and Eamon Ryan that the women of 221+ and their families deserve to be listened to and cost should not be a limiting factor. I understand that the bottom line here is money, specifically the financial exposure that the 221+ group’s requests, including the role of the laboratories in the tribunal, would mean to the State.
A couple of weeks after the Green Party launched their discussion document on Wellbeing Indicators as alternatives to GDP for plotting our national progress, I say this is a time to put the wellbeing of these small number of women over the State’s coffers. I also say I am not alone in thinking that State support of the greyhound industry is a good place to start if compromises need to be made.
Finally, I will be reminding the Taoiseach that the State apologised to the women affected by CervicalCheck only one year ago. A State apology: Please do not render something so profound meaningless and please let us do the right thing for women, yes women.
