CervicalCheck support group calls for HSE change 'from top down' 

Lorraine Walsh with Stephen Teap, who lost his wife Irene to cervical cancer. The CervicalCheck 221+ group is pushing for a culture change to change the system in the future. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

A spokesperson for the CervicalCheck support group 221+ has called for a “culture change” within the HSE “from the top down” in relation to the detection programme.

Lorraine Walsh was responding to apologies and regrets made by the HSE, the minister for health, and CervicalCheck following reports of comments by the service’s clinical director Dr Nóirín Russell.

It was important for the women of Ireland to have confidence in the service, she said, but that would not happen while the system of attempting to rewrite history and deny the past continued.

“The women of Ireland must be blue in the face at this stage listening to what has happened with CervicalCheck," Ms Walsh said. "It's important for them to have confidence in the system going forward.”

With regard to an apology from Dr Russell, Ms Walsh asked: “Is she sorry she got caught or for what she said?”

There was a need to acknowledge what had happened (with CervicalCheck) and to move on so people could have trust in the service, she said.

But for such a “re-set” to happen, there would need to be change “from the top” within the HSE.

She added that Paul Reid did not “disown” what Dr Russell had said, he just described it as “unfortunate”.

Ms Walsh said there needed to be change “across the board”, there was a need to look at what had happened “from a different perspective".

She added that people like Paul Reid and Colm Henry needed to acknowledge the failures of the past and work on how to improve the service for the future.

There was a concern that the damage inflicted by Dr Russell’s comments was dangerous — people would ask “how could this person, in this position, be saying this?”, which is why the system needs to be looked at and changed.