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Only a tenth of women invited to attend made appointments for cervical cancer screening during the pandemic, a senior Irish medic has said.<\/p>\nOnly a tenth of women invited to attend made appointments for cervical cancer screening during the pandemic, a senior Irish medic has said.<\/p>\n
Out of 110,000 invitations, only 12,000 have come forward, Dr. Noirin Russell added.<\/p>\n
Dr. Russell is clinical director of CervicalCheck, a smear test service which can detect the majority of cancers early.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cPeople are afraid to interact with healthcare and come into healthcare settings now because of the fear of Covid-19, and that is deeply worrying and concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Russell said it was a problem across the health system.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are afraid to come forward. We need to get people to come forward and we need to ensure we have the capacity to look after them when they do,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cCovid-19 has brought home to us the importance of the ethical application of scarce resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to have conversations about how best to deliver these scarce services.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said people needed to make appointments when first invited and not wait for reminder letters.<\/p>\n
Limited capacity in testing laboratories means there needs to be a staggered approach and a social media campaign has been launched to address the problem.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe cannot have a situation where everyone who is invited all decides to come next month, we won\u2019t have capacity in the system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is about managing the scarce resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
In August this year 30,000 women were waiting for outpatient appointments.<\/p>\n
Dr. Russell said it was impossible to have a functioning cervical cancer screening service without a functioning gynaecology service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to address capacity within the services,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
HSE chief executive Paul Reid said the health system enjoyed the trust and confidence of the Government as well as massive extra resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a much more challenging phase right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now managing the Covid cases but also in the context of managing all the other services we are restoring. People are tired and frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
They addressed a virtual conference of senior medics.<\/p>\n
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has said that the unenviable choices facing the Government due to Covid-19 will mount up if it continues to evade obvious remedies to the healthcare challenges.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said 450 intensive care beds should be in place in Ireland by 2022 and he had been pressing the case with ministers for more investment.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cOur ICU is too tight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do rely on surge and it does impact on elective care so I am making very strong arguments about strengthening that.\u201d<\/p>\n