Monday, January 25, 2010

Kirsty Winstanley - an English victim of an unequal union














Every now and then, you come across a story which sort of sums up this unequal union of equals and the appalling price that citizens in England are expected pay for New Labour's Grand Plan. When, because you are English, you just don't seem to qualify for stuff that is routine everywhere else in Britain.

Today, supporters of the late young mother Kirsty Winstanley, have been lobbying at Westminster to try and get cerival cancer screening down to the same age levels as the rest of the UK.

This from Sky.com -

"Kirsty Winstanley, 23, from St Helens, died ten months after being diagnosed with the disease.

She had been too young to be screened in England. If she had lived anywhere else in Britain, she would have qualified.

Kirsty had called for the cervical cancer screening age in England to be lowered to 20, in line with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Currently, women in England are not invited for the test until they reach 25.

Kirsty's brother Ian Atherton said: "She felt bitter that she didn't have the chance to save her own life.

"If the Government hadn't raised the screening age from 20 to 25 in 2003, she could have had the opportunity to have the smear test, and could have caught it. She would have had two years from 20 to 22 to catch this disease, and actually be able to survive."

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yet another dreadful injustice.

This Government should be banished to the deepest depths of hell for the way they have abused this country and her people.

RIP Kirsty, I am so sorry we all failed you.