Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 3 April 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

CervicalCheck Screening Programme Update: Discussion (Resumed)

Dr. Lorraine Doherty:

The medical benefit can include a range of benefits, including psychological benefit. Where stress or distress is caused to a patient by a perceived lack of intervention it behoves medical practitioners to decide what is the most appropriate intervention to undertake. In this scenario the decision to offer women the opportunity to avail of a free smear was taken collectively by the Government. This was particularly important for women who were anxious and could not afford to pay for an additional smear. A decision was taken at a point in time that the service was in crisis. Ordinarily we would not advise women to have out-of-cycle smears unless there was a good reason to do so.

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