Minister presses cancer inquiry panel to avoid court

By FRANCESCA MOLD

Health Minister Annette King has warned the cervical cancer inquiry that she does not want a legal dispute with health officials taken to the High Court.

Panel chairwoman Ailsa Duffy, QC, believes a court ruling is needed to resolve an argument over whether an audit of cervical cancer cases can go ahead under existing law.

But at the hearing in Gisborne yesterday, Ms Duffy revealed the contents of a fax from Annette King which says the minister does not consider a High Court hearing necessary.

Ms Duffy said she was concerned that a letter sent privately to her could be seen as an attempt to influence the committee. She said the fax should be made public so others at the inquiry could comment on it.

In the fax, Annette King asked the panel members to explain why they felt it necessary to take such a significant step.

She reminded them that she was accountable to the cabinet and Parliament for "resource implications of decisions of this kind."

After revealing the contents of the fax, Ms Duffy told the inquiry that the panel would decide for itself whether it needed to go to the High Court. She is expected to announce the decision today.

The audit would help the panel to determine whether under-reporting of cervical cancer is a problem in areas other than Gisborne.

"We have the opportunity to find out," said Ms Duffy. "We can call it quits now or we can be vigilant and attempt to find out as much as possible."

So far, the audit has been stymied by the Ministry of Health's decision not to release information identifying women on the screening register because of privacy restrictions in the Health Act.

After weeks of debate, the ministry yesterday told Ms Duffy that it believed it could bypass the restrictions and complete the audit using its own staff. But she appeared sceptical of the assurance that a study could be carried out.

"History shows there has been a lot of goodwill along the way in attempting to do things with the cervical screening programme. But goodwill doesn't seem to have expedited matters."

Ms Duffy also criticised the ministry for flaws in a contract with University of Otago researchers.

She said the document showed "what little work had been done to date" in terms of evaluating the screening programme.

Ms Duffy said the document quoted the need for ethics committee approval of an evaluation study using Cancer Register information - a statement she believed was incorrect.

"I am dumbstruck that in a legal document for an evaluation, where it recognises no thorough evaluation of the cervical screening history of women with invasive cancer, something is written that is legally incorrect and has created a major barrier to the audit being carried out."

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