A Dublin woman who helped expose a laboratory computer glitch behind the delay in thousands of CervicalCheck screening tests has called for a major change in the treatment of whistleblowers after she settled her case against the HSE.
Sharon Butler Hughes, from Stepaside, said: “There needs to be a culture change. I have faced stonewalling and obstacles for years in my bid to get answers.”
She sued the HSE and Quest Laboratories in the High Court for personal injury arising out of the delay in returning the results of a smear test carried out in December 2018.
When she did not receive her test back she made a series of phone calls to the Department of Health between March and June 2019.
Eventually, it was discovered that an IT glitch at the Quest Chantilly lab in the US was the reason for the delay.
The discovery led to a rapid review being commissioned which found 4,088 other women were also affected by the error.
Ms Butler Hughes’s case was settled for an undisclosed sum and struck out in the High Court yesterday.
The plaintiff, who was represented by solicitor Caoimhe Haughey, had taken a case for loss, damage, inconvenience and expense arising out of the delay.
In her affidavit, she said she had been deeply concerned by the delay in receiving her 2019 result, as in 2010 she had abnormalities which needed treatment and she was later advised to undergo annual tests.
The failure to return the test led to her worrying she might possibly have untreated cervical cancer.
Ms Butler Hughes’s test results were finally reported on June 17, 2019, but she did not get a copy until the end of the following month.
The result showed some cell abnormalities. The HSE had instigated a rapid review carried out by Professor Brian MacCraith, which led to the discovery that thousands of other women were also affected.
In her affidavit, Ms Butler Hughes said she was provided with a copy of the paragraphs in the review relevant to her to sign off on.
But she did not see the rest of the report, including an insertion at the end of the chapter which, she said, “amounted to a refutation” of her account of a phone conversation with an official on July 9, 2019, she had given to the review.
This related to whether the health minister at the time, Simon Harris, was aware of the computer issue. She was told he had been informed.
It was only when the report was published that she became aware that Mr Harris said he was not briefed by July 9 about the issue but informed the following day, July 10.
This came as a “complete shock and was deeply upsetting for her” and she felt it called into question her integrity, said her affidavit.
Ms Butler Hughes said issues left her suffering psychological trauma and distress, loss, damage, inconvenience and expense.
She felt traumatised by the experience and suffered breathing problems.
Mr Harris wrote to her at the time and said he acknowledged her work in bringing forward the issue but he was not informed until July 10, 2019.
Speaking after the case was settled yesterday, Ms Butler Hughes said it has been a long journey and she has faced many obstacles along the way.
“The whole thing was very stressful,” she said.
She believes there should be more transparency and that the culture around the treatment of people who speak out is still built around defensiveness and is not respectful of women.
However, she said she was a strong advocate of cervical screening and urged women to avail of CervicalCheck.
She pointed out she has benefited from cervical screening and welcomed the major overhaul of the CervicalCheck service following the controversy arising out of the issues highlighted by the late Vicky Phelan. “It is vital that women have smear tests,” she added.
Ms Butler Hughes continued to exert pressure and following her persistence, she secured additional wording to her statement to the MacCraith review in July 2020, which now appears in the report on the HSE website.
In her affidavit she describes the toll the delay took on her, describing how the stress left her “feeling on the edge”, irritable and suffering from insomnia.
She also described the sense of disillusionment, loss of trust and being let down.
‘It was found that an IT glitch at the Quest Chantilly lab in US was reason for delay’
