Preview Newsletter
Ethicon Media Monitoring 9/18/2017
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Surgeons lacked caution in use of vaginal mesh implants, doctor admits
Sep 18, 2017 | The Guardian
By Christopher Knaus
Head of Australia’s urogynaecological society says while women who suffered life-altering complications were ‘let down’, push to ban the devices are ‘hysterical’ -
Half Of The Women With Mesh Implant Complications Lose Their Partners, A Senate Inquiry Hears
Sep 18, 2017 | BuzzFeed News
By Gina Rushton
Half of the women who experienced adverse physical and psychological side effects after receiving a vaginal mesh implant have also suffered from a relationship breakdown after the procedure, a Senate inquiry into transvaginal meshes has heard. -
NSW Senate to hear from vaginal mesh victims
Sep 18, 2017 | AAP (In Sky News)
Women suffering strong pain from vaginal mesh implants will tell the Senate of the 'living nightmare' their lives have become since having surgery to repair their pelvic-floor. -
Women speak of horror of vaginal mesh implants before Senate inquiry in NSW
Sep 18, 2017 | NEWS.com.au
By Charis Chang
WOMEN suffering strong pain from vaginal mesh implants will tell the Senate of the “living nightmare” their lives have become since having surgery to repair their pelvic-floor. -
A Sydney Senate inquiry told devices were 'decommercialised'
Sep 17, 2017 | Newcastle Herald
By Joanne McCarthy
JOHNSON & Johnson has withdrawn two of its controversial pelvic mesh devices from the Australian market after the federal Department of Health required further evidence of device safety from mesh manufacturers. -
A Sydney pain specialist tells inquiry of personal anguish treating pelvic mesh victims
Sep 18, 2017 | Newcastle Herald
By Joanne McCarthy
A PAIN specialist treating women pelvic mesh device victims has told a Senate inquiry she had to see a psychologist for help because of the severity of the suffering women experienced. -
Mesh operation has stopped Welwyn Garden City grandmother ‘living life to the fullest’
Sep 16, 2017 | Welwyn Hatfield Times
By Sophie Blackman
A Welwyn Garden City grandmother is joining other women in taking legal action after a controversial operation left her in excruciating pain, which cost her £22,000 to try and fix. -
Wales TV and Mesh Campaign
Sep 16, 2017 | Mesh Medical Device Newsdesk
In the last two weeks, your editor has heard from six or more journalists, who want to know more about pelvic mesh.
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Online Sources
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Surgeons lacked caution in use of vaginal mesh implants, doctor admits
Sep 18, 2017 | The Guardian
By Christopher Knaus
Head of Australia’s urogynaecological society says while women who suffered life-altering complications were ‘let down’, push to ban the devices are ‘hysterical’
The head of Australia’s urogynaecological society has conceded surgeons lacked caution in their use of controversial transvaginal mesh implants, which they thought were “magic” and “the best thing since sliced bread”.
A Senate inquiry is currently examining the impact of transvaginal mesh products, which have been used by tens of thousands of Australian women to treat incontinence and pelvic prolapse, common complications of childbirth.
The devices have caused life-altering complications in many cases, leaving women in chronic and debilitating pain, and unable to have sexual intercourse.
The inquiry heard from two women whose lives have been destroyed by post-surgery complications – Gai Thompson, who had her surgery in 2008, and Joanne Maninon, who had the device implanted in 2012.
Both struggled with tears as they spoke of the impact the devices have had on their lives.
Maninon said she was told the mesh would make her feel like a “16-year-old virgin” and that she would be back at the gym in 10 days.
“To this day, I can’t sit upright on a chair for longer than 15 minutes at a time due to the searing, burning pain that travels across my lower abdomen and into my pelvis,” she said.
Maninon was completely bedridden for 14 weeks due to the agonising pain. She wasn’t able to leave the house for months. To get to the doctor, Maninon lay down on a mattress in the back of a station wagon.
“I describe my pain as being cut open and set alight,” Maninon said. “A deep burning, searing ache that intensifies with movement.”
Later on Monday, the Urogynaecological Society of Australasia director, Jenny King, told the inquiry surgeons had initially believed the product was “magic”.
But King labelled any attempt to ban the controversial devices as “hysterical”, saying they had positive consequences for women who were unable to undergo other major surgery. She instead said doctors should be more careful in their use, avoiding operations on younger and healthy women.
“The impacts that these have had on these women – we have seriously let them down,” King said.
“But what phases me about this is the suggestion that the solution is to ban vaginal mesh products so that other people don’t suffer,” she said.
“I don’t want to defend all of my colleagues, but we’re not really callous. We don’t like it when we can’t fix everyone, we’re really bad at that.”
Estimates vary on the number of women who have experienced problems with the implant. King said about 5% of cases caused problems. Other estimates suggest a higher rate of 10-15%.
The use of the mesh had dropped by 90% in recent years, since concerns became public.
King said the controversy had made her “timid” in her use of the devices. She regretted not using the mesh in some circumstances, because it required women to eventually undergo multiple surgeries.
The cases, seen across the western world, have prompted significant criticism of manufacturer, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. The company is currently being sued in a class action in Australia.
The Australian trial has heard the company embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign to sell the products to surgeons, promising they were easy to insert, inexpensive and therefore lucrative. Advertisements associated the products withLamborghinis and trips to the Swiss Alps.
The risks of the devices were downplayed and controlled trials were either nonexistent or insufficient, the court has heard.
The court also heard the company tried to stop French health authoritiespublishing a report warning against the use of its untested pelvic mesh devices, two years after they began giving them to Australian women.
Senator Derryn Hinch, who has campaigned against the mesh devices, asked King if Australian surgeons were offered incentives to use the devices.
“No love, truly I’ve never seen anything like that,” she responded. “Nobody’s ever given me one. I would hate to think that had happened, and I don’t know of it, truly.”
The inquiry is considering several courses of action on the mesh. One is to ban the device outright. Another is to introduce a mandatory reporting regime, which forces doctors to report adverse impacts on patients. A third is a credentialing system, which would ensure surgeons were appropriately qualified to conduct such surgeries.
This week it was revealed that Johnson & Johnson pulled two controversial pelvic mesh devices from the Australian market.
The decision came after Australia’s Department of Health required further evidence of the devices’ safety.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/18/surgeons-lacked-caution-in-use-of-vaginal-mesh-implants-doctor-admits
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Half Of The Women With Mesh Implant Complications Lose Their Partners, A Senate Inquiry Hears
Sep 18, 2017 | BuzzFeed News
By Gina Rushton
Half of the women who experienced adverse physical and psychological side effects after receiving a vaginal mesh implant have also suffered from a relationship breakdown after the procedure, a Senate inquiry into transvaginal meshes has heard.
Urogynaecological meshes, sometimes known as transvaginal meshes, are inserted into women as a treatment option for pelvic organ prolapse (when the connective tissue securing the vagina and uterus to the pelvis gives way after childbirth), or urinary incontinence.
The inquiry, which reports in November, was set up to find out exactly how many women have had transvaginal mesh implants and, of those, how many experienced adverse side effects.
Victorian senator Derryn Hinch, who spearheaded the inquiry, said the evidence he had heard suggested that "30% of partnerships break up because of [complications after a mesh implant is inserted]."
"Is that right?" Hinch asked doctors testifying at the inquiry's third public hearing in Sydney on Monday.
"I'd say 50%," professor Thierry Vancaillie, who runs the Women's Health and Research Institute of Australia (WHRIA) in Sydney, told the hearing.
Vancaillie, who is also a gynaecology professor at the University of NSW, said so far this year he had seen 54 new patients with nerve pain after mesh surgery.
Since mid-August, he has seen six new patients with these issues every week.
"Nerve pain is horrible," he told the hearing. "It burns, it stings, it feels like a ball stuck in the rectum.
"Since 2007 we have been seeing patients suffering chronic pain after mesh surgery with increasing frequency."
Vancaillie called on manufacturers to "voluntarily withdraw some of their products" and urged Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration to adopt an ongoing surveillance system to monitor complications after transvaginal mesh surgery.
Dr Liz Howard of the WHRIA said 72% of patients in the institute's pelvic pain impact questionnaire said the pain had impacted the level of intimacy or sexual relations.
Hinch told the hearing that one patient had approached him with a handful of steel wool and said: "This is what my husband feels every time we try to have sex".
Many of the women testifying on Monday could not sit still for more than 15 minutes at a time, so leaned against the walls or paced along the back of the room in New South Wales parliament.
Queensland associate professor of urogynaecology Christopher Maher has estimated more than 200,000 mesh implant surgeries have been performed in Australia to date.
More than 100 women have written to the inquiry.
Patients who suffered ongoing complications after their surgery, including relationship breakdowns, testified at Monday's hearing.
One woman, identified only as Madeleine, testified via phone at the hearing about how her "vagina felt like it was full of barbed wire and shards of glass" after her implant was inserted.
"It left me with the inability to share intercourse," Madeleine, who had three operations to remove the mesh, told the hearing.
Another woman flew from regional New South Wales to describe how a "piece of plastic" had ruined her emotional and sexual life, changing her from a "passionate primary school teacher" into a "victim".
"I've had frequent catheters, groin pain, frequent [urinary tract infections], pain during sex with the inability to orgasm, problems with urethra and bladder function, I can no longer run or cycle," she said.
"I feel sexually inadequate and have pushed away friends due to my lack of self-worth."
Gai Thompson received a mesh implant nine years ago and told the hearing she was "never warned about how catastrophic the complications would be".
"I wasn’t warned of the shame, isolation, mental anguish and financial burden this surgery would cause, and that it would consume every aspect of my life," Thompson said.
She said when she complained to her doctor about her inability to have sex with her husband because of the pain, he said: "There are many ways to skin a cat".
This echoed previous testimonies from women who couldn't have vaginal sex due to ongoing sexual dysfunction from urogynaecological mesh, who told the hearing their GPs' advice was to have anal sex instead.
Thompson is one of more than 700 Australian women currently in court fighting Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, in a class action which claims vaginal medical devices left women "suffering painful and life-altering complications".
An estimated 100,000 Australian women have been implanted with Johnson & Johnson mesh devices since 2000.
The lawyers representing the women have said there could be upwards of 8,000 Australians who have been implanted with one of the nine devices.
Johnson & Johnson said the company's pelvic mesh products had been developed in "close consultation with specialist surgeons" and were "backed by years of clinical research".
In its submission to the Senate inquiry, the company said the use of implantable mesh was supported by clinical research and was often the preferred option to treat pelvic conditions, including incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.
The company is expected to testify on Monday afternoon.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ginarushton/half-of-the-women-with-mesh-implant-complications-lose?utm_term=.dap8anMm2#.no173gZRO
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NSW Senate to hear from vaginal mesh victims
Sep 18, 2017 | AAP (In Sky News)
Women suffering strong pain from vaginal mesh implants will tell the Senate of the 'living nightmare' their lives have become since having surgery to repair their pelvic-floor.
NSW woman Gai Thompson is one of a dozen women appearing at NSW Parliament on Monday.
They are among 800 women involved in a class action lawsuit against Johnson Johnson claiming the vaginal mesh implants have left thousands in pain.
Ms Thompson, who received a mesh implant nine years ago, says she warned Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration of a looming disaster involving the device three years after having her implant.
The Senate Inquiry into the devices spearheaded by Victorian Senator Derryn Hinch has described the mesh as 'one of the greatest medical scandals and abuses of mothers in Australian history'.
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/nsw/2017/09/18/nsw-senate-to-hear-from-vaginal-mesh-victims.html
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Women speak of horror of vaginal mesh implants before Senate inquiry in NSW
Sep 18, 2017 | NEWS.com.au
By Charis Chang
GAI Thompson is one of 800 women who are speaking up about the horror of vaginal mesh implants. Warning: Confronting.
WOMEN suffering strong pain from vaginal mesh implants will tell the Senate of the “living nightmare” their lives have become since having surgery to repair their pelvic-floor.
NSW woman Gai Thompson is one of a dozen women appearing at NSW Parliament on Monday. They are among 800 women involved in a class-action lawsuit brought by Shine Lawyers against Johnson & Johnson claiming the vaginal mesh implants have left thousands in pain.
Ms Thompson, who received a mesh implant nine years ago, says she warned Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration of a looming disaster involving the device three years after having her implant.
“I’ve been praying for nine years that this would come to light and that there would be accountability for what has happened to us. We are sharing our stories to help ensure that no other woman ever has to have their health and lives destroyed by this mesh,” Mrs Thompson said ahead of her appearance at the Senate Inquiry.
The inquiry has been travelling around Australia to hear testimony about the devices. It was spearheaded by Victorian Senator Derryn Hinch who described the mesh as “one of the greatest medical scandals and abuses of mothers in Australian history”.
“We have been lied to, ignored and shamed. Our lives have been reduced to a statistic and profit has been prioritised over human life,” Mrs Thompson said.
“I was never warned about how catastrophic the complications would be.
“I wasn’t warned of the shame, isolation, mental anguish and financial burden this surgery would cause and that it would consume every aspect of my life.
“My two beautiful daughters have had to grow up with a mum who was constantly sick, tired, frustrated and at times despairing, thinking they would be better off without me. I am no longer the wife, mother and friend I used to be.
“We want to see the mesh banned and for those who allowed it to be used to be held accountable.”
One doctor told the inquiry in Perth last month that she was “aghast” after hearing some medical professionals had advised women unable to have vaginal sex that anal sex be used as an alternative.
Many women who had the surgery to insert the Tissue Fixation System reported pain so extreme that even death was welcomed, the inquiry heard.
About 90 per cent of those surveyed said they were not warned of the serious risks of complications, and some had no idea it had even been put in until years later.
The mesh is a hammock made from a plastic called polypropen. Four hooks are attached to the hips to secure it to the bladder.
The idea is to help the pelvic floor muscles keep the internal organs in place, but more than 200 women have reported an “adverse event” to the Therapeutic Goods Administration as a result of the procedure.
In 2005, the TGA approved the use of pelvic mesh in Australia, but instead of trialling the product before making the decision, the Australian regulator simply followed the US’s approval in 2002.
The TGA later admitted the approval was “not mature” and “lacked rigour”, Fairfax reported.
One woman told the inquiry that she felt something wasn’t right the moment she woke up from surgery.
“I asked them why I had holes in my buttocks — I was told I was just getting tape from my vagina to my rectum. I didn’t know I was going to have long arms like crochet hooks blindly going through my pelvic nerves,” Stella Channing told Kidspot earlier this year.
Ms Channing’s mesh immediately started eroding but the surgeon had no solution to stop her bleeding and horrific pain.
The distraught mother compared the sensation to burning petrol and broken glass in both her vagina and rectum.
“I’ve gone from earning $80,000 a year to living on a disability pension,” she said.
“I can no longer go out to socialise and people don’t know what to do when you are like this — so they just drift off.”
The class action against Johnson & Johnson has already begun, with evidence revealing a consultant told the manufacturers in an email: “I would not like my wife to undergo this procedure”.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/women-speak-of-horror-of-vaginal-mesh-implants-before-senate-in-nsw/news-story/57e0dfb4a924b98300d46799ce696e7b
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A Sydney Senate inquiry told devices were 'decommercialised'
Sep 17, 2017 | Newcastle Herald
By Joanne McCarthy
JOHNSON & Johnson has withdrawn two of its controversial pelvic mesh devices from the Australian market after the federal Department of Health required further evidence of device safety from mesh manufacturers.
But in a statement to a Senate pelvic mesh inquiry, before a public hearing in Sydney on Monday, Johnson & Johnson said it had “decommercialised” its Gynemesh Prolene and Gynemesh PSXL pelvic mesh devices because of the cost of mandatory changes to instructions for use.
“Johnson & Johnson Medical continues to have confidence in the safety and efficacy of these products,” the company said.
“Our decision to discontinue these products is based on their commercial viability following a recent direction from the Therapeutic Goods Administration to change the instructions for use for these products.
“The costs of making a change only for the Australian market would exceed the total value of the sales of the product for 2016.”
It denied the decision was a product recall, and said it was a “disappointing outcome”.
It comes as more than 800 Australian women launched a class action against Johnson & Johnson in the Federal Court in July that is expected to run for six months, and as more than 30,000 American women seek damages from the company because of injuries they allege were caused by the company’s pelvic mesh devices for incontinence and prolapse after childbirth.
Johnson & Johnson Medical continues to have confidence in the safety and efficacy of these products.- Johnson & Johnson after withdrawal of two pelvic mesh devices
Johnson & Johnson and a second American mesh device manufacturer, Boston Scientific, will give evidence at a Senate pelvic mesh inquiry on Monday, along with the director of Australian company TFS Manufacturing, Paul Zadow. Mr Zadow is a former Australian champion basketballer and Newcastle Falcons player.
In its statement Johnson & Johnson said the two Gynemesh products were cancelled from the Australian therapeutic goods registry on August 22. Two of its Prolift mesh devices, and a Prosima device, were “decommercialised” in August, 2012.
“Like any company, the decision to introduce or discontinue a product is a matter we deal with regularly and this was a considered commercial decision,” Johnson & Johnson said.
In August there were just nine mesh device company entries on Australia’s therapeutic goods register, covering 22 individual mesh devices. In 2013, before the TGA requested evidence from manufacturers of mesh device safety and efficacy, there were 42 company entries on the register, covering 100 individual mesh devices.
In evidence at a Melbourne hearing of the Senate inquiry TGA deputy secretary Professor John Skerritt said a doctor’s evidence that the TGA had not cancelled any devices was “simply not true”.
He also rejected Dr Caroline Dowling’s evidence that companies made “commercial decisions” to withdraw devices “so there was no fault with those products, they were good products”.
Professor Skerritt told the inquiry: “Those cancellations were not for commercial reasons.”
Companies initiated cancellations because “they did not have the evidence to answer the questions we had asked”.
The public hearing on Monday will be held at Parliament House in Sydney, followed by a Canberra Parliament House public hearing on Tuesday.
The inquiry was launched after Victorian Senator Derryn Hinch described the marketing of pelvic mesh devices in Australia as “one of the greatest medical scandals and abuses of mothers in Australia's history”.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4928110/johnson-johnson-cancels-two-mesh-devices/
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A Sydney pain specialist tells inquiry of personal anguish treating pelvic mesh victims
Sep 18, 2017 | Newcastle Herald
By Joanne McCarthy
A PAIN specialist treating women pelvic mesh device victims has told a Senate inquiry she had to see a psychologist for help because of the severity of the suffering women experienced.
“I don’t know how you can be human and not be affected,” Women’s Health and Research Institute of Australia osteopath and pain management specialist Liz Howard told a mesh inquiry public hearing in Sydney on Monday.
“I was awake at 3am every night trying to find how can we help these women,” she said.
Institute director Professor Thierry Vancaillie told the inquiry the institute had seen 54 new patients in 2017 seeking help for severe, permanent and disabling pain after mesh surgery, with an average of six new women patients per week since August.
I don't know how you can be human and not be affected.- Pain specialist Liz Howard talking about pelvic mesh victims
While the institute has treated women with chronic pelvic pain since 1999, it had increasingly treated women with chronic pain related to mesh surgery since 2007, only a few years after the first mesh tapes were cleared for use in Australia for incontinence and prolapse after childbirth.
The Senate inquiry into pelvic mesh devices was established after a campaign led by women survivors who formed the Australian Pelvic Mesh Support Group, and a speech in Federal Parliament by Senator Derryn Hinch. The systemic medical industry failures flowing from the pelvic mesh decade, where about 150,000 mesh devices were implanted in women, was one of the greatest medical scandals against women in Australian history, Senator Hinch said.
More than 800 Australian women are taking part in a class action against just one mesh manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, and another 500 are registered in a class action against a second mesh manufacturer.
Professor Vancaillie said many women implanted with pelvic mesh devices were dismissed by their doctors for years – sometimes for more than a decade – when they experienced extreme and disabling pain.
While pain management specialists had been proactive in trying to learn ways to treat women, the gynaecologists who implanted the devices weren’t as “forthcoming” in acknowledging and addressing the serious pain complications following mesh, Professor Vancaillie told the inquiry.
Women victims of mesh devices, Jo Manion and Gai Thompson, both cried while giving evidence about the severe impacts of mesh surgery, with both women saying the pain and other severe effects had led them to experience suicidal thoughts.
I am no longer the wife, mother and friend I used to be. I am a Christian and have a very strong faith but to be bluntly honest, I am just hanging on by a thread.- Pelvic mesh victim Gai Thompson
“I am no longer the wife, mother and friend I used to be. I am a Christian and have a very strong faith but to be bluntly honest, I am just hanging on by a thread,” said Mrs Thompson, who was 43 when she was implanted with a Johnson & Johnson prolapse device, without warnings of the extreme complications that could occur.
Mrs Thompson cried when talking about the impact on her husband and two daughters, who were at the inquiry, after evidence that her mesh surgery had forced the family to sell their house and move to a unit.
“My eldest daughter can’t live with us because we haven’t got the room,” Mrs Thompson said.
“I would like one of these doctors to spend one day in my life. The pain is indescribable.”
She accused doctors, mesh manufacturers, regulators and medical colleges of minimising the systemic failures that led to some pelvic mesh devices being cleared for use in Australia and overseas by quoting statistics showing complications occurred in a minority of women.
“I’m not a statistic. I’m not a percentage. I’m not collateral damage,” Mrs Thompson said.
Ms Manion told the inquiry her doctor did not raise issues about the risks, but said he told her she would be “back at the gym in 10 days” after the surgery.
“He said I would be like a 16-year-old virgin after the implants,” she said.
Instead the disabling pain that she experienced as soon as she woke from the surgery left her in “a world of pain” and seeking the kind of painkillers usually reserved for palliative care patients.
“There were days when I did not want to live," she said.
“I have lost my house, my job and my self esteem. I now know I did not require a mesh. I’m on a disability support pension. In the end it drove me to the point where I just thought I’m ready to check out. I’ve had enough.”
Sydney urogynaecologist Dr Jenny King told the inquiry doctors were not credentialed to implant mesh devices, and were not credentialed to remove them.
Told that a woman of 29 was implanted with a pelvic mesh device, Dr King said that was “too young”.
A Hunter woman was 21 when she was implanted with a pelvic mesh device.
Dr King told the inquiry that some pelvic mesh surgeons were “over-enthusiastic” with their use of the devices.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4929834/helper-seeks-help-over-mesh-suffering/
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Mesh operation has stopped Welwyn Garden City grandmother ‘living life to the fullest’
Sep 16, 2017 | Welwyn Hatfield Times
By Sophie Blackman
A Welwyn Garden City grandmother is joining other women in taking legal action after a controversial operation left her in excruciating pain, which cost her £22,000 to try and fix.
Doreen Day, 70, was originally recommended surgery after suffering from vaginal prolapse and had a mesh fitted in 2007.
Doreen told the Welwyn Hatfield Times that she woke up from the operation screaming in agony and begged for the surgeon to take the mesh out but he did not.
The controversial surgery left her in constant overwhelming pain, unable to enjoy sex.
The mesh that was fitted can shrink once implanted which means it can cut through tissues causing pain and complications.
In the past 10 years, women from all over the world have come forward who are now wheelchair bound, in constant agony, unable to walk, and have had partners leave them because of mesh complications.
In May, the Welwyn Hatfield Times published an article about another WGC resident whose life had been destroyed since she had mesh surgery in 2015.
The surgeon who performed Doreen’s operation could not remove the mesh so the grandmother-of-two spent £22,000 of her and her husband Tom’s savings to fly to LA in November 2015 to meet Dr Raz - a surgeon who has removed thousands of meshes from women.
Doreen said: “There was no surgeon in the UK I could trust who had the expertise to remove the mesh so after a lot of research I discovered Dr Raz.
“Me and my husband couldn’t afford it and had to take a massive chunk out of our savings to go but I needed to.
“I needed my life back.
“I’ve been so lucky with Tom because he is my absolute rock.
“He has been there for me every single step of the way and even came to LA with me.”
Sadly, even though Dr Raz was able to remove the mesh, Doreen still suffers with chronic pelvic nerve pain caused by the original operation in 2007 and has to take strong painkillers.
Doreen said: “I want to warn women who are suffering from incontinence and prolapse, and men and women who need hernia repairs to please consider other options and not have a surgical mesh fitted.
“Every day since I had mine I worry about the pain.
“It’s stopped me living my life to the fullest and I’ve missed out on so many things because of it.”
Kath Sansom, 49, a journalist with Archant, launched a campaign group called Sling The Mesh, after also suffering as a result of a mesh operation in 2015.
The group, which has almost 3,000 followers, is calling for better patient information, a National Register to track mesh problems and ultimately the TVT, TVTO and POP operation to be suspended in England Wales and Northern Ireland.
Kath’s tireless campaigns have helped to raise a debate about the operations in Parliament with a group of MPs behind her.
She is also leading legal action on behalf of women who have suffered as a result of the mesh, including Doreen.
Welwyn Hatfield MP Grant Shapps has had several constituents who have suffered from this surgery contact him.
Mr Shapps said: “I have heard of the devastating problems and seen the distress that the mesh can cause so I am naturally extremely sympathetic to anyone who has suffered from this procedure.
“I do know the government recently established a working group in order to consider everything about this procedure from the consent process, quality of clinical practice and also the available data.”
Mr Shapps added: “I have been liaising with my parliamentary colleague Owen Smith MP about the campaign.
“I understand there is also an upcoming parliamentary debate on this issue and together with the Sling the Mesh campaign, it is very good that this issue is receiving the scrutiny it clearly deserves.”
Doreen is keen for anyone who has gone through this operation and wants someone to talk to contact her by emailing doreen.day2@gmail.com
http://www.whtimes.co.uk/news/mesh-operation-has-stopped-welwyn-garden-city-grandmother-living-life-to-the-fullest-1-5194890
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Sep 16, 2017 | Mesh Medical Device Newsdesk
Mesh Medical Device News Desk, September 16, 2017 ~ In the last two weeks, your editor has heard from six or more journalists, who want to know more about pelvic mesh. Thanks to the outreach globally by mesh campaigns in Australia, Scotland and the UK to bring awareness. Their willingness to go public has sparked some long overdue awareness on behalf of the media.
Maxine is speaking out on television in Wales. Made in North Wales TV to be specific.
She was brought to the attention of broadcasters through Kath Sansom and the UK Sling the Mesh Campaign. This is just the latest in a series of broadcasts around the world about the mesh debacle.
https://www.meshmedicaldevicenewsdesk.com/wales-tv-mesh-campaign/
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