Sir, - Recent revelations regarding cervical smear testing have shaken public confidence in a vital health procedure and highlighted not only the inadequate funding of our health services but also the lack of quality assurance or supervision of such testing procedures.
In the UK all clinical pathology laboratories must receive what is known as the CPA (Clinical Pathology Accreditation). In Ireland, the only laboratory with such a CPA is the blood transfusion laboratory in Cork, which, incidentally, the South Eastern Health Board is trying to close down.
Questions must be asked about why a test vital to the health and life of women was contracted out to a laboratory, in the absence of a quality assurance programme, by health boards that themselves have no proper quality assurance accreditation and are already over-stretched.
The Minister has a duty to restore women's confidence in cervical screening; he must ensure that screening becomes available under the GMS and that dedicated testing centres with proper staffing and resources are established as part of a State-wide programme. In a country with a healthy economy there should be proper and respectful service of care for women, yet we are very short of that at the moment. - Yours, etc., Mary E. Flynn
Co-Chair, Labour Women's National Council, Ely Place, Dublin 2.