Fine Gael has questioned why a contract to process cervical smear tests was awarded to a US firm following the revelation today that the firm has paid out $40 million in fraud settlements over the past 10 years.
Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon, the party's health spokesperson, Dr James Reilly, criticised the decision to award the contract to Quest Diagnostics and attacked Tánaiste Mary Coughlan for stifling debate on the issue.
The Minister, who was taking the Order of Business, said that Dr Reilly’s remarks were inappropriate.
“We must have clarity on the loss of the cervical screening contract to the USA," said Dr Reilly. He claimed that Quest has an accuracy rate of 85 per cent and a margin or error of 15 per cent while Irish Laboratories have a 95 per cent accuracy rate.
“This margin of error may be acceptable in the US where smears are taken annually, but it is not acceptable in Ireland where it is planned to take smears every three to five years. This margin of error means that, at 300,000 tests a year, 30,000 more Irish women will needlessly be recalled or, much worse, may have their diagnosis missed.
"Furthermore there will not be a facility for the specialist in Ireland to discuss the smear with the person interpreting it in the US. This utterly flies in the face of what is considered best practice," he added.
The awarding of the contract to process smear tests for the forthcoming national cervical screening programme was criticised by Irish medical laboratory scientists at the weekend after the Irish Timesrevealed that the National Cervical Screening Service (NCSS) had awarded the contract to Quest.
Organisations representing medical laboratory scientists described the decision not to award the testing to Irish public laboratories as “short-sighted”
The NCSS will be free to all women in Ireland aged between 25 and 60 years of age. Screening will be provided every three years for women aged between 25 and 44 and every five years for women aged between 45 and 60.
Over 70 women die in Ireland each year from cervical cancer, which is preventable if the early signs are caught and treated. The NCSS, which selected Quest Diagnostics as the “preferred service provider”, has said it believes mortality rates may be cut by up to 80 per cent once the screening programme is in place.
In 2006, Quest Diagnostics was contracted by the HSE to clear a backlog of cervical smears. The company, which processed some 13 million smear tests last year, is in talks on establishing a base in Ireland.
