Collins Judith: Health (Screening Programmes) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Health (Screening Programmes) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I rise to support this bill’s referral to the Health Committee. This bill which concerns cervical cancer is one of the rare occasions when it seems that all parties in the House can be unanimous in supporting it to the Select committee. I have been listening with great interest to all the speeches on this bill this afternoon and I have been particularly heartened by the contributions of Dr Lynda Scott and Dr Paul Hutchison. We are privileged in the National Party to have two such fine parliamentarians who are also very fine and informed doctors and who can help this House to understand more of the issues in relation to this bill.  
Like my colleagues I have concerns over the control and auditing of the process by the Ministry of Health and I say that for various reasons. One is that the cervical cancer screening programme that currently exists—the national cervical-screening programme—has obviously worked for a lot of women and that is a good thing. But what has been shown is that inadequate auditing and excessive amounts of concern about privacy as opposed to health have led to situations where—as in the case of Dr Bottrill’s particular negligence—so many women have needlessly lost not only their fertility but their lives and have gone through the most appalling process. There is no point in having cervical screening if it is not accurate. Inaccurate screening is worse than having no screening at all. Members will have heard of the woman named “Jane” whose case is very well known and who has gone to extraordinary lengths in an attempt to get some justice and personal responsibility from Dr Bottrill. I know Jane and her family. It is awful to see a young woman like her—with a family with young children to look after—having to go through that sort of process. It is awful to see the sort of pain that she and her family have gone through. That said it is wonderful to see the sort of bravery she has shown.  
One of the concerns that some medical professionals have in relation to this bill is what they see as an opportunity for individual practitioners to be identified. Their concern is that there will be too much emphasis on individual health professionals rather than on a system. In other words there will be too much looking for “Dr Bottrills” rather than for systemic failure. Personally I do not agree with that. I agree that if there is one thing we need in our health system it is for health professionals to take individual and personal responsibility for their actions. There is one thing that we certainly need in this country and that is for people to do that generally and stop blaming the system.  
Parliament is certainly trying to look at that issue in this bill by bringing in an auditing process but I have grave doubts about how that process will work when it is audited by the very people who are running the programme. I echo the concerns of both Dr Hutchison and the ACT spokesperson when I say that there is concern as to who is watching the watchers and that is something that we on the Health Committee will be looking at. We will be looking at what that process is going to be and who will be watching the watchers. With a screening programme for something like cervical cancer women are being told that their records are being looked at so that they can be checked. Women should be able to have a cervical screening smear and know that the results they are given are correct. They should not be told—as Jane was three times with three different smears—that they are fine when they are not fine. Jane is just one of the 129 people who were so affected.  
We have a national cancer register and that is obviously a very good thing. It helps us to have better access to information. It lets us know how we should handle health funding and where the money should be spent. There are other areas though and here I echo concerns from I think New Zealand First. If we have cancer registers then we should be looking at other sorts of registers as well particularly in relation to epidemic-type diseases like HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately diseases like cervical cancer are diseases that we cannot just sweep under the carpet and hope that they will go away. Like cervical cancer we are talking about diseases that are in many cases silent killers. There is no outward manifestation of disease and therefore people will often will not know about it unless they are properly informed and unless a register—should we have one—is properly audited.  
I agree with the speakers who have said it is absolutely correct that there be a right to opt off such a register. It is very important for women to know that their records are their records and that should they wish to be on the register their records will be accessed for a proper reason—that is for the auditing of the results in order to make sure that their results are right. They also need to know that no matter what it is their bodies; that what happens to them is their decision and that they have to have that right. I applaud that provision and hope it survives the select committee process.  
Unfortunately early death from cervical cancer almost always leaves children without a mother and grandchildren without a grandmother. Cervical cancer is a disease that invariably hits women in their forties or fifties if it is going to hit them at all. That is one of the tragedies; it takes people far too young. It often takes people in the prime of their professional and family lives. Just when they should be there for their children they are not there. Therefore I am very concerned to make sure that this bill is strengthened in the select committee and I am pleased that we are able to support it.