The Health Funding Authority is still trying to track down nine women whose original cervical smear results may have been incorrectly coded by laboratories.
Alliance health spokeswoman Phillida Bunkle asked at Wednesday's health select committee meeting how the HFA was going in tracking down women for new smear tests after its review found six laboratories had significantly under-reported high grade abnormalities.
The six laboratories were understood to differ from those identified for "closer scrutiny" in a Health Funding Authority Review tabled with the Gisborne inquiry this year. The HFA has refused to name the labs.
However, it has said women whose smears were read by two of the labs might need follow-up smears and colposcopy after there were inaccuracies with coding results.
HFA service strategy manager Dr Win Bennett said 84 women had been followed up and it believed the nine it was trying to trace were overseas and not at great risk.
Their test results would have correctly told them they had an abnormality but might not have indicated how serious the problems were.
Dr Bennett said the women should have been recalled automatically after six months for another smear but it wanted to contact them to make sure this had happened.
- NZPA
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