Women’s lives cannot be jeopardised by further cutbacks to women’s health services

Published: Monday, July 13, 2009

The National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) supports the Well Women Centre's (WWC) call to ensure that the most-at-risk groups are targeted in planning future delivery of the Cervical Check National Screening Service. The Dublin Well Women Centre is a member organisation of the NWCI.

As part of its Women's Health Campaign , the NWCI has been conducting a series of workshops with members across the country, focussing on women's access to public health services. Alhough the feedback about CervicalCheck at the workshops has been generally positive; at workshops in Cork, Donegal and Waterford, community health workers expressed concern that the Free Cervical Screening Programme would effectively be reduced by managing demand; once the scheme switches to an invitation-only system shortly.

The NWCI echoes the WWC concern that once CervicalCheck moves to a call/recall system in September, women from lower socio-economic groups may 'fall between the cracks' unless they are specifically targeted through recruitment and education campaigns.