An investigation into what went wrong with breast cancer diagnostic services at Midland Regional Hospital will be ready by the end of November and will be published, Minister for Health Mary Harney said today.
Seven women who were screened at the hospital had been given the all-clear but later were told last week they had breast cancer. An eighth woman came forward today.
The Health Service Executive is now trying to establish how many more women may have been diagnosed incorrectly.
Minister for Health Mary Harney
Ms Harney ruled out an immediate public inquiry into the matter but an internal report is due to be presented to her at the end of the week.
Ms Harney said: "The first thing we have to do is see the result of this particular [HSE] investigation and maybe when we see that it will answer all the questions. The reality is here that we didn't have a triple assessment, the hospital with the volume of activity like Portlaoise could never have that, and that is why it was totally unsafe to have breast cancer dealt with in 35 hospitals around this country."
Ms Harney said that it was a tragedy that
women with cancer were misdiagnosed.
"It shouldn't have happened. It did happen. The HSE has apologised and I'm quite certain at times like this people aren't particularly interested in apologies but what I'm interesting in is ensuring that those women now get the treatment they should have got earlier and that other women and other patients are not put to through this awful ordeal because they are treated in centres where they can not get the standard of excellence they are entitled to expect in Ireland in 2007.
"And that means we have to rapidly proceed with the development of the eight centres and the plan is to have those centres in place by 2009."
A new cancer control plan overseen by Canadian consultant Prof Tom Keane is due to be rolled out in coming weeks.
Speaking later on RTÉ's Six Onenews, Ms Harney said this evening it would be "meaningless" to hold such an inquiry and not to publish the outcome.
However, she said she wanted to be careful what she said about the inquiry because it was possible there would also be Medical Council investigations into the matter. Ms Harney said that getting treatment for the women incorrectly diagnosed as all clear but who later turned out to have breast cancer was the "first priority".
Ms Harney also said it was now important to "move rapidly" to put in place eight "centres of excellence" for breast cancer care and diagnosis throughout the State.
The Labour Party today called for an independent investigation to establish what went wrong with breast-cancer screening services at the Midland General Hospital in Portlaoise.
Nineteen women who had breast cancer scans at the hospital and who were given the all-clear will find out this week if they were correctly diagnosed.
Labour Party health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan
It emerged last week that seven women who were screened since November 2003 had been given the all-clear when they had breast cancer. An eighth woman who had been given a clear diagnosis, but who was later diagnosed with cancer, also came forward today.
The Laois woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told RTÉ the treatment of the women involved was "a scandal".
The HSE has apologised to the women for the delay in their diagnosis.
Labour Party health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said there was now a "huge crisis of confidence" in the health service and in particular over the screening and diagnosis of cancer.
She said it was now up to the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, to "take personal charge of the situation and earn back the confidence of the public".
"We need a proper independent investigation to establish exactly what went wrong at Portlaoise," Ms O'Sullivan said.
Fine Gael called for investment in digital scanners to ensure double-checking of breast scans.
The party's health spokesman, Dr James Reilly, said the Minister was "abdicating her responsibility for the things that have gone wrong at Portlaoise Hospital and elsewhere despite the devastating consequences for the women who have now been diagnosed with cancer".
"The fact of the matter is that Portlaoise was designated a centre for breast cancer care for the midlands in 2000, but reports that the radiographic equipment at the hospital is 15 years old clearly suggest that proper funding was never put in place."
The problems in the diagnoses at Portlaoise were discovered during a review of 3,000 mammograms after concerns were about the manner in which a consultant radiologist at the hospital was reading the scans. The consultant has been sent on leave.
HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm said yesterday that more than 40 women had been called back for detailed review, and, because 19 of those have to be finalised, the figure of seven misdiagnosed patients "could change".