Vicky Phelan (guest editor): 'My aim is to raise awareness about the devastation of cervical cancer'

Vicky Phelan Photo: Cathal Noonan.

When I was approached by the Irish Examiner to guest edit a cervical cancer special edition of Feelgood on International Women’s Day, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, writes Vicky Phelan.

As the woman who exposed the CervicalCheck debacle, I have been contacted by women and families from across the country with horror stories of possible misdiagnoses and stories of devastating loss — the loss of the opportunity to have a family, the loss of enjoyment of a healthy sex life, the loss of a sense of being a woman. As one survivor put it, cervical cancer has “ripped the soul out of us”.