Minister for Health Mary Harney and chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE) Prof Brendan Drumm have said they were unaware until Wednesday of the review of ultrasound scans carried out on women with suspected breast cancer at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise. A total of 97 women have so far been recalled for further surgical review after doubts emerged about the scans. Martin Walland Mark Hennessyreport.
The HSE believes it is "probable" that more women will be recalled for further checks when the results of assessments of a further 171 outstanding ultrasound tests are known today.
Speaking at Farmleigh House last night, the Minister said she only became aware of the details of the numbers of women involved when the director of the HSE's national hospitals office, John O'Brien, spoke to the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children yesterday.
"Clearly, I think that there are issues around the communication of this matter," she said.
Ms Harney said that she was advised that the patients concerned were "low risk" and that the HSE was anxious to ensure that no stone was left unturned. She said that the decision to review the ultrasound scans was taken by a surgeon in Portlaoise, Peter Naughten.
Mr Naughten is the surgeon who wrote to Ms Harney personally in July 2005 expressing concern that the service in Portlaoise was "a shambles".
The deputy chief medical officer of the Department of Health, Tony Holohan, said last night: "The HSE made some reference to a second review, and on further questioning we discovered that there was a second process led by Mr Naughten, which they confirmed to us by email yesterday. That was our first knowledge that there was any separate review process. The numbers we heard at the committee for the first time this morning."
The HSE in a statement late lastnight said Prof Drumm was not aware that a separate process around ultrasound records was being carried out. It said that this process was being managed locally.
However, the HSE, in a separate statement earlier yesterday, said it had announced in late August that both mammography services and ultrasounds were to be reviewed.
Separately, senior HSE sources had said yesterday evening the organisation had become aware "several weeks ago" there were doubts about ultrasound scans carried out on some women with suspected breast cancer in Portlaoise.
However, the HSE said it did not inform the women concerned until it had put in place arrangements for special clinics and possible follow-up services. The problems emerged as part of a review of 568 women who underwent ultrasound scans between November 2003 and last August.
The HSE is to put in place a special clinic at St James's Hospital in Dublin and possibly one other centre next week to carry out surgical reviews and provide any follow-up diagnostic services required for the 97 women who so far are to be recalled.
This is the latest controversy to affect breast cancer services in the midlands. On Wednesday Ms Harney revealed that a separate review of mammography services at the hospital showed that nine women who previously had been given the all clear had now been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Fine Gael health spokesman James Reilly said that the failure of the HSE to inform the women concerned and then for them to hear through the media yesterday represented "a truly shocking dereliction of duty". Dr Reilly said that the Minister had been alerted to the problems in Portlaoise by the consultant at the hospital 2½ years ago but had "failed to take control of the problem and simply passed the buck". He said that Ms Harney could not wash her hands of the problem and that she should resign.