Every year, around 3,000 new cases of cervical cancer are reported in the UK. Despite approximately 99.8 per cent of cases being preventable, there are still many misconceptions surrounding cervical cancer. Cervical Screening Awareness Week, an annual campaign led by Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, runs from 20 to 26 June 2022. Although cervical cancer can affect anyone with a cervix the term 'women' will be used here for brevity. This article was originally published in 2020.
When the letter arrived through her front door, Marianne Nicholson did not open it. The 43-year-old from Northern Ireland knew what the envelope contained and had already decided that after a previous smear test when the nurse chastised her for bleeding, she wouldn’t be responding to future invitations. Nicholson had tried to explain it wasn’t her period but spotting caused by her contraceptive pill, but the nurse had already terminated the procedure. “She [the nurse] was annoyed and I was really embarrassed. After that I disliked smears so much,” she tells me.
