From top: Minister for Health Simon Harris before the launch of the National Standards for Adult Safeguarding at the Richmond Event Centre, North Brunswich Street Dublin this morning; Lorraine Walsh on RTÉ One’s Prime Time last night
Lorraine Walsh, Cervical Cancer Advocate tells Miriam O’Callaghan that she does not have confidence in the RCOG review process#RTEPT | @MiriamOCal | @LorcallWalsh pic.twitter.com/D41uPaf5tv
— RTÉ Prime Time (@RTE_PrimeTime) December 3, 2019
“We’re 18 months waiting on this report, it’s a long time for women to be sitting at home waiting for answers” Lorraine Walsh, Cervical Cancer Advocate tells Miriam O’Callaghan that she still has faith in the cervical screening system.#RTEPT | @MiriamOCal | @LorcallWalsh pic.twitter.com/nbsFiG4f7f
— RTÉ Prime Time (@RTE_PrimeTime) December 3, 2019
Lorraine Walsh on RTÉ’s Prime Time last night
Last night.
On RTÉ’s Prime Time, Lorraine Walsh announced that she was resigning from the CervicalCheck steering committee.
Ms Walsh, from Galway was one of the 221 women affected the CervicalCheck scandal last year and cannot conceive due to having had cervical cancer.
She was subsequently made one of the Government’s appointees to the CervicalCheck steering group.
Her announcement last night followed yesterday’s publication of a report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), after it examined the slides of 1,000 women.
The RCOG found that in 159 cases there were missed opportunities to prevent or diagnose cancer earlier.
Ms Walsh told Prime Time last night that she felt she had no choice but to resign.
She also urged women to continue to attend screening services.
Ms Walsh said:
“There’s been so much, has been come out over the last number of months. But we learned a number of months ago that information that was coming through from RCOG to the HSE was inaccurate.
“So much so that the reports were delayed going back to women. Reports had to be returned to RCOG because of inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the reports. Even as late as early October, 581 reports – half of them had to be returned because the detail within them was inaccurate.
“And I had brought that information to the CervicalCheck steering committee, I brought my concerns to them. I spoke to the Minister for Health about my concerns. And I felt that I got to the stage where people weren’t listening to my concerns.
“So, I could do no other thing but to resign.”
Watch back in full (if you can get it to work) here