TIL that Tony Holohan sent a letter to a Cervical Check patient that “all but threatened legal action”. Later that year she resigned from the CervicalCheck panel in a show of no confidence.

18 comments

1. Was not his finest hour, reeks of old school doctor arrogance.

2. What did she say? Did she make a ‘defamatory and untrue statement’.

   He sent a letter and sought mediation, seems a bit sensitive but what was said first?

3. I’ve seen people take varying positions on how culpable Tony is in the scandal. Is that what you mean by ‘minimising of what the women went through’? If so, you’re tangling up issues that could be separated.

4. He sought mediation which seemed like the right approach? What could’ve been done differently?

5. Does anyone know what she actually said? Tony doesn’t come across well here but if she was making untrue statements that what else was he supposed to do?

6. What did the women go through precisely in your view?

7. But I thought Tony was a hero that kept us safe?

8. I found [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/rcf1rs/z/hnx8eux) to be a really good summary of Holohan and cervical cancer.

9. Yet people painted murals of him.

10. When you think of the secrecy and trickery that was pulled in the scam to try and catapult him into a fake job at Trinity at our expense, you wonder what secrecy and trickery were pulled to protect him over this.

    I don’t imagine we’ll ever know the full story.

11. I’ve long believed that he was a diabolical prick. Not sure why people decided to canonize him during the first year of the pandemic.

12. I’ve said it many times tony holohan should be in prison yet he was running the countries medical response and being praised as a hero…. only in corrupt ireland could this happen!

13. Rightfully so. Those women have done immense damage to the CervicalCheck program and have done more harm to women’s health than good.

14. I think it’s a highly complex situation, and it’s not black and white. The scally report vindicates holohan to a large degree and it’s clear that he was not holding back the diagnoses from women in some evil, moustache-twirling act.

    As for the letter, it’s hard to know how to judge that when we don’t know what she was saying. Should he have left it considering how it would be perceived? Maybe, but more of his reputation was maybe at stake and he wanted to set things to rights.

    All of the women affected by the cervical check scandal have a right to feel the anger they do. It’s unimaginable to think of the pain caused to them and their loved ones. It’s understandable that they want people to blame to be held accountable, and while the system is not perfect, the scally report makes it clear that it was a systemic error, rather than any malevolent human tinkering. As it happened on holohan’s watch, he bears some level of responsibility, but only in so far as he was there to ensure it couldn’t happen again, and why it Indeed did happen, which he clearly tried to do from all accounts. Albeit, maybe not perfectly.

15. old news. hes a slimy politics man more than a doctor

16. Correct me if I’m wrong but the whole cervical check scandal revolved around people expecting a test result to be 100% accurate which obviously was never going to be the case.

17. Cartoon of a cape wearing Tony wearing his underpants on the outside superhero style!!! Wheeeeee!!!!

18. Tinfoil hat headbangers incoming in 3…2…1…