Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is one question I omitted to ask. The section of the report dealing with the progress report on interval cancer audits indicates that the expert group is looking at processes that should work in the future. Is it not the case that, after the Vicky Phelan case last April, the internal audit was shut down and that, since then, between 250 and 300 women who were excluded from the group of 221 women who were affected initially - the 221 group - have been diagnosed with cervical cancer? In other words, these women's cases have not been audited and the women have not been given access to the care package which members of the 221 group received, yet it is likely that they have a smear history because the smear test programme was in operation for 11 years. Was the audit shut down to keep the figure at 221 and stop it growing? Is the HSE not deliberately denying women access to the full healthcare package and to an audit, which would allow them to look at their history in the context of what happened to others? Given the law of averages, there could be 50 to 60 women out there who are dying of, or at the very least suffering from, cervical cancer who may have fallen into the 221 category were they not shut out because the HSE closed the audit and did not replace it. Nobody ever said there was a problem with the audit. The way in which the audit was carried out seemed perfectly fine. The problem was that patients were not told about the results. The HSE shut down the audit and is looking at a new type of audit but in the meantime a whole cohort is being excluded. Do the witnesses acknowledge that is the case?