Families of women who died after misread smears label reports 'a whitewash'

The families of two women who died from cervical cancer after misread smears have said they have no confidence in the Southern Trust or the Public Health Agency’s reports into cervical screening performance.

One relative has described the review into 17,500 women's results as a "whitewash". Campaigners and families have also reiterated their calls for a full public statutory inquiry.

The review, published on Wednesday, found that eight women could have been diagnosed and treated for cancer earlier, had their tests been read correctly.

Another 11 women needed pre-cancerous treatment after their tests were reviewed.

Two women, Lynsey Courtney and Erin Harbinson, have since died of cervical cancer after misread smears.

The Southern Trust has apologised to all of those impacted.

Lynsey Courtney was just 30 when she died from cervical cancer in September 2018. Her son Callum was 11.Lynsey's family asked the Southern Trust to check the work of the screeners involved in the mistake which had fatal consequences but they were told there was no need.A serious adverse incident in her case was never declared. Speaking to UTV in September, Sandra Courtney said: "I just thought it was common sense that anybody in that type of work, with the seriousness of that type of work, that would be one of the first things that they would do."Five years on, the Southern Trust conducted the recall of 17,500 women’s smear results following a damning report from the Royal College of Pathologists into years of screener underperformance in the lab at Craigavon Hospital.It turned out to be too late for Erin Harbinson. The 44-year-old mother of four passed away in August after three of her smear tests were misread.Speaking to UTV in April she said: "This is somebody's fault. They did this to me. They have killed me."It was Erin's case, among others, which led to the recall. Her husband Trevor is far from happy with the findings of Wednesday's reports. "It seemed to me to be a bit of a whitewash. There was no answers to the who, why and how it went on for so long.

"I am disheartened that Erin could not get these answers and I am still waiting for these answers now", he said.

Trevor has yet to receive a final serious adverse incident report into what happened to his wife which was meant to be disclosed during Erin's lifetime. Sharon Rooney has survived cervical cancer but she was recently told abnormalities and subsequent cancer cells in her screening were not detected. The 51-year-old was offered an apology and counselling but came out of her meeting with more questions than answers. The mother of three is also querying the numbers in today's reports. "I have kind of lost faith in the Southern Trust and going back to the numbers today, my cancer diagnosis to me is minimised if I am not included in that number. So I do not know where people go from there."Sharon is not alone. UTV has closely followed this story and spoken to multiple women whose smear tests were inaccurate and who went on to develop cancer.Campaigners supporting these women say there needs to be a full statutory public inquiry into what went wrong and for so long.Catch up with the latest UTV Live on ITVX

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