Film review: Vicky Phelan documentary puts a human face on CervicalCheck scandal
A digital artwork of Vicky Phelan is projected onto the GPO in Dublin to mark the release of a feature documentary about her life next week. Picture: Brian Lawless/ PA
The human cost of one of Ireland’s greatest medical scandals is laid bare in the documentary, Vicky, the story of how Vicky Phelan fought for accountability following the CervicalCheck debacle.
The world premiere of the documentary took place at Dublin’s Lighthouse Cinema in February as part of the Dublin International Film Festival. Phelan herself wasn't at the film, but attendees included Cork father of two Stephen Teap, whose wife Irene died of cervical cancer at the age of 35. Teap is one of the primary contributors to the documentary. Others at the premiere included musicians Steve Wall and Niall Breslin, and broadcaster Ray D’Arcy.
Filmmaker Sasha King’s feature documentary captures Phelan’s quick-witted humour and spirit of determination as it focuses on her efforts to find justice for herself and other victims. It also details how she left no stone unturned in her search for the latest treatments for the disease, adding many years to her life.
The documentary recalls how Phelan realised a 2011 smear had been reviewed and cancer found while looking through her medical file during cancer treatment several years later. It set in motion a court case that began to expose the full extent of the scandal.
The campaigner remembers in King’s film the circumstances of her initial diagnosis in 2014 and her devastation, following treatment, of getting a terminal diagnosis four years later.
“I said I’m taking back control of this. And that’s when I started researching everything,” she says of her determination to find any treatments possible to aid her survival.
The film also features interviews with oncologists, medical experts and Phelan’s legal representative Cian O’Carroll, who went on to represent other women and families.
Phelan tells how she refused to take an initial settlement on the condition that she sign a non-disclosure agreement. “I knew at that point that there were other women who were in the same boat as me... clueless,” she says in the film.
One of those women was the late Irene Teap, whose husband Stephen only learned of an issue with the outsourcing of cervical smears following an RTÉ interview with Phelan.
- This review was first published on February 25, 2022
