Since a scandal over false negative pap smear screening results rocked Ireland, several actions have been taken in the High Court of the country. Vicky P., the plaintiff in a lawsuit against Ireland’s CervicalCheck program, filed her legal action after being diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2014.

Previously, pap smear screening she had completed in 2011 resulted in her being cleared of any abnormalities. This clearance was allegedly the consequence of inadequate and poor processing and was a false negative report delaying her cancer treatment and ultimate prognosis.

The filing of the false negative pap smear screening lawsuit set the government into public relations damage control. The settlement of the case with the mother of two from Limerick which came in April 2018 in the amount of €2.5 million (roughly equivalent to U.S. $3 million) continued to spur controversy and other legal actions against the beleaguered preventative health care program.

In June 2018, another victim of false negative pap smear screening, Emma M., settled for €7.5 million (approximately U.S. $8.6 million) in the country’s high court. Emma is terminally ill with cervical cancer and, if she had an accurate screening, intervention might have changed the outcome of her disease. At this point, she is expected to succumb as the cancer is beyond the level of surgical intervention.

High Court records are seeing women that experienced the false negative pap smear screening and were later diagnosed with cancer filing lawsuits in record numbers. According to these records, the month of May saw four new lawsuits filed as did the month of June. This month six new legal claims were made against the CervicalCheck program.

The State Claims Agency has been hopeful regarding mediation with women whose routine pap smear screening was mismanaged and led to misdiagnosis and advanced and untreatable cancer later on. Unfortunately, this hope has not stopped the legal claims from being filed in High Court.

The defendants in most of the false negative pap smear screening lawsuits include Health Service Executive (HSE)—Ireland’s public health service. Other defendants include MedLab Pathology—a processing lab based in Dublin, Quest Diagnostics—a processing lab based in the U.S., and Coombe Hospital—another processing lab. All three were contracted by the National Cancer Screening Service of Ireland.

The Cervical Cancer Screening Scandal

In the years between 2010 and 2014, over 200 women were given false negative pap smear screening results according to an audit of the cervical cancer preventative screening program of Ireland. Of this group, nearly 20 have since died, but confirmation of whether their deaths were from cervical cancer is not clear.

The Prime Minister of the country is looking into beginning a program of automatic compensation for those women who are still alive and also for surviving family members according to a New York Times article.

The audit occurred in 2014, but emails entered into evidence in the Vicky P. lawsuit alleged that physicians were encouraged not to advise their patients of the error.