Clodagh Finn: National love for Vicky Phelan is in stark contrast to State’s cold shoulder

The nationwide expression of genuine feeling makes it all the more disquieting that our own Government has so abjectly failed to listen to hundreds of women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal

Vicky Phelan has a number of new tumours, and will now receive palliative chemotherapy in Ireland. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

When CervicalCheck campaigner Vicky Phelan first went to America for cancer treatment, poet Rye Aker wrote a glorious poem called Vicky In The Flat, telling her that everyone in Ireland would be her virtual flatmate during her stay.

It went: “The new girl moved in next door. From Ireland. And four million Irish flatmates with her, with their arragh go on at the end of each day. Asking her ‘what’s the craic’?”

I quoted it here at the time because it captured so beautifully the depth of support for a woman who, as Aker put it, is “A Markievicz for the new time./A woman who stood up for the nation/that had harmed her and many others./And made it a better place.”

Now that Vicky Phelan is home again, so too are her legions of supporters who have been offering words of comfort following news that she has a number of new tumours, and will now receive palliative chemotherapy which, she says, will keep her alive until Christmas at least.

Earlier this week, RTE broadcaster Ryan Tubridy sent her “all the love that is humanly possible”. That sentiment was echoed on social media where tens of thousands of well-wishers paid tribute to a woman who has fought for redress for herself and for the hundreds of other women diagnosed with cancer after false negative cervical smear tests done on behalf of CervicalCheck.

I went back to see if Galway-based poet Rye Aker had written an update and, sure enough, there it was: “Tonight, more than ever, we need to be the flatmates for our good friend Vicky Phelan, again, to be the soft pillow of our love for her,” he tweeted.

Like so many others, he said he admired Vicky Phelan’s honesty and the way she had fought to change the world for so many. “I am sending her the energy of my words and the millions of Vicky’s flatmates who are wishing her well through this latest challenge,” he said.

Tonight, more than ever, we need to be the flatmates for our good friend @PhelanVicky again, to be the soft pillow of our love for her. pic.twitter.com/cl3XBLijkM

— Rye Aker (@RyeAker) October 3, 2021

Let us hope that the outpouring of support offers some small comfort to Vicky Phelan and her family.

The nationwide expression of genuine feeling makes it all the more disquieting that our own Government has so abjectly failed to listen to the hundreds of women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal. They repeatedly asked for a tribunal that would act as an alternative to the “harsh, unforgiving and greatly drawn-out process of the High Court,” to quote the 221+ CervicalCheck patient support group.

Last month, the Dáil heard that the tribunal had received just eight claims since it was set up by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly last year. That figure compares with 310 women who have opted to go to the High Court.

As Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said: 

“We’re all familiar with the court cases where women are being fought in court right up until days before their death. This is enormously cruel.”

To summon up the enormity of that cruelty, recall Dingle woman and retired nurse Joan Lucey who died from cervical cancer last February, just hours after the HSE and the laboratories agreed to begin the mediation that her lawyers had pleaded for twice in court.

Or the case of Ruth Morrissey, who died in July 2020 before the State or the HSE apologised to her. She, like the 37 other women who have died to date, fought fiercely to stay alive and she used her voice to encourage other women to continue to go for smear tests. The testing system had failed her, but it had saved many others, she said.

Similarly, Eileen Rushe promoted cancer testing and the HPV vaccine until her death from cervical cancer last week. The screening process had worked for her, but she received an apology and an undisclosed sum from the HSE in March for failings in her care at Louth County Hospital.

So, what now for the 300-plus women who, at this unspeakably difficult time, are opting for the harshness of the courts over the tribunal?

It is not as if the Government is unaware of the difficulties. In May, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the CervicalCheck tribunal had “struck an iceberg” and was not working.

Eileen Rushe promoted cancer testing and the HPV vaccine until her death from cervical cancer last week. The screening process had worked for her, but she received an apology and an undisclosed sum from the HSE in March for failings in her care at Louth County Hospital.

A month later, two Sinn Féin TDs, Rose Conway-Walsh and David Cullinane said the women affected were “voting with their feet” by going to the High Court and, in the process, sending a loud and clear message to Health Minister Stephen Donnelly that there were problems with the tribunal.

Labour leader Alan Kelly said it “was a stain on us” that the issue had not been dealt with and – tellingly – warned that a condescending paternalism in the medical profession might be reasserting itself.

It is hard to ignore what Alan Kelly terms “condescending paternalism” because there is clear evidence of a gender knowledge gap in medicine, as elsewhere, which puts women at an automatic disadvantage.

To take one example, quoted in Caroline Criado Perez’ must-read book, Invisible Women: data bias in a world designed for men, researchers at Leeds university found that women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack because female symptoms, such as stomach pain, breathlessness, nausea, and fatigue, differ to the dominant image of a man with chest or arm pain.

As Criado Perez says: The medical system is “from root to tip, systematically discriminating against women, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated and misdiagnosed”.

Those biases certainly had a role, if unconscious, in the CervicalCheck scandal, but it is more difficult to understand why Health Minister Stephen Donnelly continues to turn a deaf ear to the women and their families who wrote, in November 2020, to describe all exchanges about the CervicalCheck Tribunal as a “pointless waste of time”.

While the country is rallying around Vicky Phelan, there is still time for the Government to finally listen to the people who describe themselves as a collection of citizens with one thing in common – “being victims of the missteps of the State”

“We didn’t just point out the problems, we also proposed solutions,” the 221+ group wrote. While it acknowledged that the solutions might not be achieved with the stroke of a pen, it said they were possible if the Government had the will to act.

Those solutions involved ways to deal with the statute of limitations and the more pressing concerns about a possible recurrence of cancer. As of now, as the group understands it, the tribunal cannot deal with a claim for recurrence. If a women’s cancer recurs, she would be forced to go to the courts and begin her case from scratch.

“The Government,” the group continued, “had the opportunity to oversee a solution for these women that is better than the long fight through the courts. It chose otherwise and that will be its legacy when the debacle of the past [is] consigned to the archives.”

Almost a year after that letter was written, nothing has changed, but the case is not yet in the archives. While the country is rallying around Vicky Phelan, there is still time for the Government to finally listen to the people who describe themselves as a collection of citizens with one thing in common – “being victims of the missteps of the State”.
Surely, one set of missteps is enough.