The public treatment of women who attended breast cancer facilities at the Midland Regional Hospital in Portlaoise is shameful. Whether it alone should lead to a vote of no confidence in the Minister for Health Mary Harney in the Dáil next week, or legal proceedings against the medical professionals actually responsible, is another matter.
Problems in the health service seem to get worse, judging by daily news stories, but neither Ms Harney nor the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Professor Brendan Drumm, wrongly diagnosed the women. There were medical failures.
There are lessons to be learned. The most important one today is that the rights of patients must take precedence over the convenience of service providers, including their unions.
Public confidence in the health service has taken another battering this week because of the manner in which the HSE responded to the situation. When it suspended breast services at the hospital last August, it assured patients there was no cause for concern. But nine women who had received the all clear following a radiology scan have since been diagnosed with breast cancer. And about 100 more who underwent ultrasound scans are being recalled for further investigation.
No screening system is perfectly accurate. However, the high incidence of misdiagnoses in these cases, through equipment or other faults, is deplorable. A lack of urgency in the response by the HSE is equally unacceptable. While women and their families worried, it took nearly two months to complete a review of 3,000 mammograms. A similar exercise in relation to ultrasound scans is only now ending. To make matters worse, the significance of the latter project and its progress was not explained to either Minister for Health Mary Harney or to HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm. The first they - and affected patients - heard about it was through evidence given before a Dáil committee.
Patients should be the first to learn of concerns regarding their health and, where possible, provided with reassurance and support. That is what a "duty of care" requires of doctors and health service providers. In this instance, however, administrative and other considerations appeared to dictate the approach taken by the HSE. Women were left waiting for official contact 24 hours after concerns about their health were ventilated in public.
Seven years ago, the Government accepted an official report that recommended the establishment of eight specialised centres of excellence for the treatment of breast cancer. But it failed to provide the funding or the leadership necessary to put that plan into effect. Now, belatedly, Tom Keane has been brought in from Canada to establish the new services at selected centres. And Minister of State at the Department of Health Jimmy Devins publicly opposes the policy. It is an administrative, political and medical mess.