Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Does the Tánaiste think it is now time to pass legislation banning outsourcing in healthcare, given what we can read in today'sIrish Independent? There is a backlog of 80,000 tests from women who underwent cervical screening in recent months. CervicalCheck has issued a warning on its website about a wait of more than five months in a small number of cases. This follows revelations that an additional laboratory in the UK, which is run by MedLab Pathology and which screens tests in Dublin, is being asked to reduce some of the backlog. During this entire scandal, tests are being sent to private companies abroad who then outsource the tests. As was discovered recently, in many cases CervicalCheck did not even know where the tests were going. It is clear that lives are being put at risk for profit and for cost. Is it now the time to re-nationalise the screening of all of these important diagnostic tests and bring them back into the public health system?

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