Results 21-40 of 41 for cervical speaker:Kate O'Connell

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on the CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion (18 Sep 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...audit - what would the impact have been? I ask Dr. McGuinness to talk me through what the impact would have been if the accreditation body had not been as generous. What would that have meant for cervical screening? What would it have meant for the accreditation body?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion (16 May 2018)

Kate O'Connell: -----and would have noticed when she returned from the UK that we had a very high level of cervical cancer relative to our European counterparts, and that there was a critical need. She became highly aware, as a witness mentioned earlier, that we are doing about the same amount of smear tests now as we did ten years ago. They simply are being done differently. Everybody is getting a go at...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: CervicalCheck Screening Programme Update: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...we can eat into that backlog. That is a major concern for us because, again, there have been a couple of comments that it could take ten years or so to get through this. If the progression of cervical cancer is three, six, and nine years that is then sending a message out of this committee that is incorrect, which will feed the scaremongering and the anxiety related to this issue. ...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Cervical Screening Programme: Department of Health, HSE, CervicalCheck and the National Cancer Control Programme (2 May 2018)

Kate O'Connell: ...for Mr. O'Brien. How can Irish clinicians conduct multi-disciplinary teamwork with people in different time zones, who use different nomenclature and perhaps different terminology regarding cervical cytology? That is the first question. Second, from the time the cervical screening programme was introduced, and we did not have the capacity in Ireland because there was a backlog, was any...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: National Cervical Screening Programme: Department of Health, HSE, CervicalCheck and the National Cancer Control Programme (2 May 2018)

Kate O'Connell: I thank the witnesses for their attendance. Mr. O'Brien, initially there was a two-year contract for the outsourcing of cervical smears, which took place under his watch in 2008. Was the two-year contract renewed or was it audited in order for the State to continue the contract? Mr. O'Brien was in charge at the time. In 2008, the decision was made by the then Minister to send the smears...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (26 Apr 2018)

Kate O'Connell: ...this clearly is a systems failure. The tragedy of it is that if things do not happen in the appropriate timeframe, which appears to be the case, the disease progresses quickly. The key thing with cervical cancer is the three, six and nine years. In young women in particular it tends to be aggressive and not to be diagnosed early. I booked an additional check myself this morning. It is...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2019
Vote 38 - Health (Further Revised) (10 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...money - did this for us. What recourse exists when the State pays fees to a professional body to act on its behalf in an expert role and that body does not do its job right? We have discussed CervicalCheck and the capacity issue for so long but, again, like the national children's hospital, it is worth remembering where CervicalCheck has come from. I imagine that the Chairman is very...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on the CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion (18 Sep 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I understand that. However, in the case of State contracts, specifically the contracts for cervical and bowel screening, the ISO standard is specified. The contracts have been signed with the companies. MedLab Pathology had a laboratory in Manchester, with a guy working on his own, of whom INAB was blissfully unaware for nine months, until the laboratory applied for accreditation for the...

Public Accounts Committee: Health Service Executive Financial Statements 2018
2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Department of Health
Chapter 16 - Control of Private Patient Activity in Acute Public Hospitals (27 Jun 2019)

Kate O'Connell: Brilliant. I thank the Chairman. What is the annual cost of CervicalCheck? I am talking about the entity that is CervicalCheck from the time it was established to last year. What was the annual spend for that? The witnesses may not have this to hand. I am talking about staffing costs, the running of the building and also the contract costs to the different labs. I do not need to know...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on the CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion (18 Sep 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...files and standards, etc., were examined - before retrospectively deeming him competent solely on the basis of the evidence it had to hand. This happened in the middle of an absolute crisis in cervical screening. It all seems generous, which is one way of describing it. I do not know what the best word to use is. I find it unorthodox. I find it very strange. Would there be any reason...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Engagement with Patient Representatives on CervicalCheck and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Review Process (17 Dec 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...to improve people's lives and improve survival rates. I would like to examine some of the witnesses' proposals. Before the regime started, we had the highest rate in Europe of people dying of cervical cancer. I take it from what the witnesses have said that one of the negative aspects of advances in healthcare is that it is not good enough for those who have survived life-limiting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Update on the CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion (18 Sep 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...the time, because then I could say it was part of a standard approach. The accreditation body has been in operation since 1985. It seems that in the middle of a serious health crisis involving cervical cancer screening, it decided to tick this box for a private company, thereby deeming that in the accreditation body's expert opinion - looking back - the laboratory was competent and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (10 Nov 2016)

Kate O'Connell: ...vaccine, we are heading towards an uptake rate of under 50%. That is concerning because it is in breach of the concept of herd immunity and in terms of how we had the possibility of eradicating cervical cancer for people like my young daughters. My understanding is that the fall-off in the rate of the vaccine uptake could translate to the deaths of 40 girls who are now 12, 13 and 14...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Vaccination Programme: Discussion (11 May 2017)

Kate O'Connell: ...from the HSE and the Department down to the ground to deal with this. Confidence has been mentioned. I am not sure where Dr. Brennan works. My experience of the public system for the treatment of cervical cancer is that the system is very good. We spend a lot of time in here complaining and saying everything is awful and everybody is on a trolley, but my understanding on the ground...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Clinical Guidelines for the Introduction of Abortion Services: Discussion (19 Sep 2018)

Kate O'Connell: ...will land out of the sky are additional and have never approached a GPs surgery. I remember evidence to the committee said that most of the women are already attending their GPs for contraception, cervical smears and so on, so they are pre-existing patients. That does not seem to have entered the conversation. I know it is a new service, but these women already exist. There has been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: CervicalCheck Screening Programme Update: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: ...the answer. I do not follow Twitter in the sense that it is not where I get my official press releases. Anyway, the chief medical officer made a press statement stating any woman who had had a cervical smear test should have a further test as part of a reassurance measure provided the GP took the view that she required it. Moreover, the Minister asked CervicalCheck to make arrangements,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scoping Inquiry into the CervicalCheck Screening Programme: Discussion (10 Oct 2018)

Kate O'Connell: ...spoke about the counselling or information given to people when they went for a smear and the idea that when one's smear returned a clear result, everything was fine. According to the report, CervicalCheck organised the training of those responsible for imparting that information, so it is, surely, at fault for the poor training in that regard. My main concern is that before any of this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution: Statements by Committee Members on Recommendations oif Citizens' Assembly (6 Dec 2017)

Kate O'Connell: ...we start inquiring as to the violence of the rape, whether it was committed when she was conscious or unconscious, whether she needed medical intervention for vaginal tears requiring sutures or cervical surgery? Do those on this committee, those outside this committee in the Upper and Lower Houses, and those outside these walls in the real world think that the punishment that should be...

Public Accounts Committee: Implications of CervicalCheck Revelations (Resumed) (14 Jun 2018)

Kate O'Connell: ...medical people are becoming more annoyed because we are now undoing all the good that was done through the screening process in this country over ten years. We will probably reverse our 7% reduction in cervical cancer rates. The whole negativity around this is bad for public health, which, as far as I am concerned, it is supposed to be the witnesses' job to protect. I am a Government...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update on Health Issues: Discussion (9 May 2018)

Kate O'Connell: ...too much after six months, I could understand it. However, it seems a bit confusing at this point in the conversation. I wish to return to the issue of open disclosure, with reference to the cervical screening situation. Mr. O'Brien referred to the open disclosure practice of the HSE non-clinical staff. Is there any letter or any record of any non-clinical staff member being told...