The warning comes after the Scottish Government announced that more than 430 women have been mistakenly excluded from cervical screening in the past 24 years, resulting in the death of one woman.
A routine review of cervical cancer data last December found that some women who had a partial hysterectomy were not invited to screening, while only those who had a full hysterectomy should have been excluded.
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Opposition parties criticized the government for not acting quickly enough to make the cervical screening bug public after ministers were informed in March.
This bug was not caused by Covid-19, but it shows the potentially fatal consequences of problems with screening and treatment, Macmillan said.
As in this case, the impact of the pandemic on cancer outcomes is likely to become apparent in several years, lawyer chief Kate Seymour said.
Cancer charities have warned of a backlog in screening, diagnosis and treatment during the pandemic. It is believed that there are 7,000 “missing” or undiagnosed cancer cases in Scotland
Opposition parties have repeatedly urged the Scottish government to take more action to deal with the Covid backlog.
“There is concern that if screening is delayed, patients could be diagnosed later, which could ultimately mean people being diagnosed at the stage where their cancer cannot be cured,” said Ms. Seymour.
“It could also mean they will be diagnosed at a late stage, which means they will need more complex treatment.
“We basically know that surgery was stopped during the pandemic, so cancers that would have been best treated by surgery were treated differently.
“There is a concern that people may not have the same chances of survival as they would have had if they had been treated early with surgery.”
The 7,000 missing cases are a “real concern,” she said.
“Some of them will have gone the other ways, but it is undisputed that there are thousands of people we would expect to have been diagnosed with cancer who have not, and these will inevitably be the most vulnerable” , she said .
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One woman is dead and affected by a bug in the cervical cancer screening program
“They will be the people who may be diagnosed by A&E at a later date.”
Ms. Seymour said the effects of delayed diagnosis and interrupted treatment would “last for years,” pointing to the cervical screening flaw that began more than 20 years ago but was only just being discovered.
“We expect advances in the early detection of cancer patients to decline,” she said.
“The consequence of this is that people need to have more invasive treatment or a stronger impact from the cancer.
“And ultimately we think that this will mean that some people will lose their lives.”
She added, “We don’t yet know what the impact will be, but there will be an impact. You can’t have a pandemic and it has no effect.
“There may not be many people in the end, but it will have an effect and there will be people whose survival outcome is not what it would have been if we hadn’t had the pandemic.”
Regarding the one woman who died of cervical cancer after the screening failure, Ms. Seymour said the focus should be on preventing any possible death.
“Just because it’s not 1,000 or 500 people doesn’t matter,” she said.
“All we want to do is for the individual. It is the job of humans to make sure they get their best treatment and results.”
To tackle the backlog in diagnoses and treatments caused by Covid-19, those activities would need to return to pre-pandemic levels, she said.
The same as before is “not good enough”, she said, “because we have to catch up”.
The Scottish government developed a cancer recovery plan late last year that involves an investment of £ 114.5 million.
Patients are “at the center” of the plan, the government said, and patient safety and the NHS are the “priority ministers.”
The plan included the establishment of cancer screening centers that recently opened in Ayrshire and Arran, Dumfries and Galloway and Fife.
Women’s Health Secretary Maree Todd had previously admitted that the flaw in the Scottish cervical screening program may have affected more women than the NHS Scotland was previously aware of.
Speaking to BBC Good Morning Scotland on Friday, Ms. Todd said the real number was “possibly higher”.
She said, “I’m afraid we may look at higher numbers.”
The records of at least 500 women who had partial hysterectomies prior to 1997 are yet to be reviewed, Ms. Todd said.
These are more difficult to access, but should be checked before the end of July.
Ms. Todd said the NHS will review the records of all women expelled for hysterectomy – approximately 200,000 people – as a “caution.”
But she “fully expects” that there will be no further mistakes.
Opposition MSPs have questioned the delay between ministers knowing the matter and making it public.
Labor’s Jackie Baillie said: “The SNP’s decision to keep the public in the dark about such a serious mistake is incredible.
“These women had failed for decades. The least they deserve is to be made aware of the risk they face as soon as it comes to light. “
Scottish Conservative Annie Wells said: “The SNP ministers have serious questions to answer about how urgently they are addressing this issue.
“They were first made aware of these mistakes in March, long before Parliament was closed for the election, but they didn’t start sending letters to women until this week. It’s just not enough.”
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source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/covid-pandemic-backlog-will-see-more-lives-lost-to-cancer-says-charity/
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