Victims query King's claims

By CLAIRE TREVETT

The woman whose case sparked the Gisborne inquiry was unconvinced by assurances from Health Minister Annette King that the situation she faced would not happen to another woman.

"Jane" discovered she had invasive cancer in 1995 after Dr Michael Bottrill misread her smear test results.

The mother of three had to have a radical hysterectomy, radiation and other medical treatment that has left her with nerve damage to one leg.

"If Euphemia [McGoogan] says the system has holes in it still, then it has holes in it," she said.

"It was not a foolproof system when the inquiry started and it hasn't been fixed - it's not rocket science to figure out there are still big problems."

Another woman, Wendy Ure, said Dr McGoogan's report revealed a worrying lack of action by the Government on the national screening programme.

She was particularly concerned about delays to the audit of women who developed cervical cancer between January 2000 and September last year.

She said that the Government's implementation of 10 of the 46 recommendations in the inquiry report did not instil confidence in the programme.

But Deputy Director-General of Public Health Dr Don Matheson defended the time taken for the audit. It took longer to get medical records from doctors than expected and the response was higher than expected.

Consent had to be obtained from every woman to use their medical records in the audit.

Euphemia McGoogan:

Report on the National Cervical Screening Programme and progress towards Implementation of the Gisborne Inquiry Recommendations

Herald Feature: Gisborne Cervical Screening Inquiry