WOMEN who have had abnormal cells detected during a cervical screen test are waiting up to five months in Limerick to be told the outcome of further investigations.
That’s according to Green Party Senator Róisín Garvey who raised the matter during a Seanad sitting last week.
She told the house that over 12,000 women a year in Ireland are left in Limbo awaiting further test results.
Senator Garvey said the issue came to light for her when she was asked by a woman who was first screened in November of last year to intervene because she had no results.
“Part of the problem is that if the consultant is away, there is no-one to convey the results.” Senator Garvey said that when she made enquiries on behalf of the Limerick woman who contacted her, she found this to be the case and the results were then passed on.
“That’s not my job. I don’t know whose fault it is but that poor woman was in bits every single day for five months thinking she had cancer,” Senator Garvey told the house.
She said that women are “losing sleep, wondering day in and day out if they have cancer”.
“We need to give women confidence in the programme. They are afraid to start the experience in case they find out there is something wrong and then have to wait months before they are told they are going to be okay.”
The Senator said she had been told that the target time after an abnormal smear test is to have an appointment for a colposcopy within eight weeks and results of that further test within four weeks.
Minister of State with Responsibility for Public Health Frank Feighan said that according to his information, as of March 2022, referrals for colposcopy procedures in Limerick were “100 per cent within the set targets”.
But he said that it is “unacceptable” that any woman should be subjected to additional stress because a consultant is absent and he promised to raise the issue with the Health Minister.
