By FRANCESCA MOLD
GISBORNE - A document comparing the rates of abnormal smears reported by laboratories nationwide has been censored by the Gisborne cervical screening inquiry.
The document, which compares the cervical smear reporting rates of 30 hospital and community laboratories in the year to June 1994, was presented to the inquiry yesterday with the names and regions of the laboratories deleted.
The lawyer for women affected by slide misreading, Bruce Corkill, asked that the original document with all the identifying detail be made available so it would be more useful to the inquiry.
But the Ministry of Health lawyer, Mary Scholtens, said at least two laboratories contacted by the ministry had objected to the document being made public.
She said the laboratories were concerned that there might be a "potential for misunderstanding."
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Hanne Janes, said she had produced the document because it would allow the panel to compare laboratory reporting rates in different regions, while taking into consideration important qualifying features such as demographics and socio-economic issues.
Ms Janes said it also might be the only information that could help the panel to establish whether the misreadings of former Gisborne pathologist Dr Michael Bottrill were an isolated case.
The panel chairwoman, Ailsa Duffy, QC, said the laboratories might agree to the information being made available if it identified regions rather than individual labs.
Even if she agreed to admit the document in this "sanitised" form, the information would still be subject to a strict suppression order, she said.
The lawyer for Dr Bottrill, Christopher Hodson, QC, said the document showed his client's reporting rate for high-grade abnormalities was 0.6 per cent.
It also showed that five other laboratories had the same rate as Dr Bottrill or less.
Together, these labs covered one-third of all New Zealand smears reported in the 1993-94 period.
Mr Hodson said Dr Bottrill had been heavily criticised because the rereading of his slides by a Sydney laboratory came up with a high-grade rate of 3.73 per cent - six times his client's rate.
He asked ministry witness Dr Bob Boyd whether the laboratories that also had a rate one-sixth of the Sydney finding had been identified to exclude the possibility that other women might be at risk.
"I have answered you before that the Health Funding Authority has had the responsibility for looking not only at the re-reading but also ways in which you can judge the effect and quality of work from other labs," said Dr Boyd.
Mr Hodson said there appeared to be no evidence that concerns about smear reporting in other parts of New Zealand had been looked at or even raised with Health Minister Annette King.
"What happened in Gisborne has been presented as a serious public health risk. Isn't it desirable that it should be dealt with as a matter of high priority?" said Mr Hodson.
Dr Boyd: "An incomplete report would not be helpful for public confidence.
"I don't know why there is no document there [presented in evidence]. I believe the work is not secret but it would not be useful until the results are known and can be critiqued."
Mr Hodson: "Exactly the same could be said about the work of Dr Bottrill ... we shouldn't judge something until [we] have all the information."
Funding authority lawyer Kim Murray said staff were doing a great deal of work looking into all laboratories and smear reporting rates.
The results would be presented to the inquiry in July.
Panel censors smear comparisons
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