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Ethicon Media Monitoring 6/7/2018
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The biggest lesson from the vaginal mesh saga? Doctors must listen to women
Jun 7, 2018 | The Guardian
By Melissa Davey
How many women need to be ignored, harmed or maimed before women can be confident their health issues will be taken seriously? -
Mother-of-two, 60, given vaginal mesh claims she can feel the controversial implant CUTTING her internal organs like a 'cheese wire' and admits the scandal-hit surgery left her suicidal
Jun 6, 2018 | Mail Online
By Jack Flanagan
A mother-of-two today claimed she can feel her controversial vaginal mesh implant cutting her internal organs like a 'cheese wire' and a 'chemical burn'. -
VAGINAL MESH HORROR Mum-of-two with vaginal mesh implant can feel it CUTTING her internal organs like a ‘cheese wire’
Jun 7, 2018 | The Sun
By Nicola Stow
A MUM claims she can feel her vaginal mesh implant cutting into her internal organs like a “cheese wire”.
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The biggest lesson from the vaginal mesh saga? Doctors must listen to women
Jun 7, 2018 | The Guardian
By Melissa Davey
How many women need to be ignored, harmed or maimed before women can be confident their health issues will be taken seriously?
According to a professor of gynaecological surgery, Dr Jason Abbott, more than 60% of women suffering from crippling endometriosis are told their symptoms are “normal”. Diagnosis can take a decade, at which point women often undergo invasive and unnecessary surgeries on their reproductive organs at the behest of their doctors. It’s a tragedy that led to Australia’s health minister, Greg Hunt, issuing a national apology.
A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2014 found that interventions that are ideally reserved only for complicated childbirth cases are also performed on women with low-risk pregnancies and labours. These procedures include episiotomy, where a surgical cut is made in the perineum to enlarge the opening of the vagina, and which in rare cases can cause rectal tissue tearing and ongoing pain.
Women are tired of being told they are making up pain. They are traumatised from living with catastrophic consequences of surgeries they were not adequately informed about, or were not necessary.
Which is why a well-intentioned statement, issued on Wednesday by the UroGynaecological Society of Australasia in response to the transvaginal mesh scandal, comes across as paternalistic and ill-worded. In the statement, the head of the society, Dr Jenny King, correctly points out that mesh surgery has a low complication rate for treating incontinence. And mid-urethral slings – which are different from the problematic meshes now banned in Australia for treating prolapse – are also usually safe and sometimes medically necessary for treating prolapse, she says. It’s important women are aware of this.
But where King goes astray is in her comment that women are shunning evidence-based treatments involving slings and mesh because of “the fear generated by adverse publicity, social media and the Senate inquiry”.
The vast majority of women who contacted Australia’s Senate inquiry into transvaginal mesh procedures reported severe complications such as bladder perforation, excruciating pain and recurring infections. The inquiry found: “... most of these women have experienced great difficulty finding medical practitioners who would accept that the symptoms they were experiencing were as severe as they claimed ... their struggles to find support and treatment have had far-reaching and devastating impacts on their lives”.
King says because of the inquiry and subsequent negative publicity, “I am performing prolapse procedures without mesh which I know have an extremely high chance of failure – simply because of patient anxiety”.
“This is poor practice but what else can we do,” she says.
But there is a lot specialists like King can do, and it starts with listening to and informing women. Her comments echo those made in a piece published in the New Zealand Medical Journal that said the media “have over previous years done great harm to the reputation of mesh abdominal wall and groin hernia repair”.
What should also be prominent in these statements is recognition that doctors, regulators and pharmaceutical companies have failed women repeatedly. There needs to be a renewed and meaningful commitment made to listening to women and to making sure they give informed consent. There have been reports that pharmaceutical companies who manufactured transvaginal meshes began heavily promoting them to doctors, and that doctors and regulators continued to promote the devices to patients in the face of a growing body of evidence that efficacy was lower and complication rates were higher for pelvic organ prolapse.
Why didn’t regulators demand stronger evidence? How many women were told that there was little robust information on the success of the procedures in the long term, and that complication rates could be significantly higher than those typically reported in clinical trials? How many regulators and surgeons failed to scrutinise the evidence pharma presented to them, and to keep on top of new research?
Complications may be rare but given transvaginal mesh operations accounted for nearly 25% of prolapse interventions in some countries by 2010, this still equates to hundreds of thousands of women who have experienced bad outcomes.
Mistrust of excellent doctors like King is worrying. It leads women to unproven, useless and ineffective treatments. But the way to win women back is not to point towards media scare-campaigns or government inquiries. Let’s not forget where this sorry saga began – with dodgy clinical data and regulatory failure. Women are fed up, and they have reason to be scared. They have a right to think twice, ask questions, and demand to be heard. The transvaginal mesh saga is only the latest in a series of examples of women being let down, with devastating consequences.
It’s up to the regulators and the medical profession to regain their trust.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/07/the-biggest-lesson-from-the-vaginal-mesh-saga-doctors-must-listen-to-women
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Jun 6, 2018 | Mail Online
By Jack Flanagan
A mother-of-two today claimed she can feel her controversial vaginal mesh implant cutting her internal organs like a 'cheese wire' and a 'chemical burn'.
Susan Morgan, 60, went under the knife nearly a decade ago so that she could tackle incontinence and take up ballroom dancing.
But Ms Morgan, from Brixham, Devon, said she suffered unbearable pain almost immediately after the scandal-hit procedure, which left her suicidal.
She said the trans vaginal tape (TVT) has taken away her career, family and her freedom over the last nine years, and she has barely been able to leave her house.
Thousands of other women have been maimed by mesh across the world and have been left on the brink of suicide, unable to work and reliant on wheelchairs.
Dubbed 'barbaric, vaginal mesh has been branded the 'biggest medical scandal' since thalidomide - the morning sickness drug dished out in the 1950s and 60s.
Ms Morgan has lost the use of muscles inside her bladder and is now dependent upon her two daughters.
Speaking about her ordeal for the first time, she said: 'I want an apology. I think everyone deserves one who has had the mesh.'
At the age of 51, Ms Morgan was advised a urinary incontinence procedure would achieve her wish of being able to enjoy ballroom dancing.
Instead, she left hospital and endured pain so excruciating she thought she was going to die.
Since turning 60 last year, Ms Morgan said she has now reached a turning point and says she doesn't want to spend almost another decade grieving for the woman she once was.
Instead she now has to accept the woman she has become.
'Catastrophic' surgery
Ms Morgan, who used to run the Susan Morgan Skin Clinic in Brixham, had her surgery at Torquay's Mount Stuart Hospital.
She said: 'It's a 21st century catastrophe for the medicine world and the patients involved, and is just getting into the public arena.
'I have had lots of women ring me over the years having had similar experiences and I have lost a few through suicide.
'I can understand why as the pain is just unbelievable.
'It's far worse than labour pains as it's hitting the same nerves. It's like your body wants to dispel this thing stuck to you and your body goes into push overdrive.
'It has caused me to suffer from depression for years because I have lost my career, my bladder, my partner and my sex life.'
Ms Morgan added: 'Turning 60 was a big landmark for me. It made me realise I had lost my 50s - virtually a decade of my life, along with my youth and womanliness. That hit me hard.
'I woke up after the surgery and thought I was going to die. The shock was so immense that I got into a brain fog. It was quite bizarre.
'I was in hospital for three days instead of 24 hours. I was not able to empty my bladder and had an infection. They struggled to put a catheter in.
'They sent me home, even though I don't think I was well enough. Within two hours of being home my catheter was blocked.
'Suddenly I was hit with just the most unbelievable pain.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5813093/Mother-two-60-felt-like-cheese-wire-inside-botched-vaginal-mesh-operation.html
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Jun 7, 2018 | The Sun
By Nicola Stow
A MUM claims she can feel her vaginal mesh implant cutting into her internal organs like a “cheese wire”.
Susan Morgan, 60, said she has been left feeling suicidal at times due to the agony she’s suffered as a result of the surgery.
The mum-of-two decided to have the op almost a decade ago so she could tackle incontinence and take up ballroom dancing.
But she claims the pain began immediately afterwards and that the trans vaginal tape (TVT) felt like a "chemical burn" and "cheese wire" in her body.
Susan says the operation has taken away her career, family and her freedom over the last nine years and she has barely been able to leave her house in Brixham, Devon.
She said: "It's a 21st century catastrophe for the medicine world and the patients involved.
"I have had lots of women ring me over the years having had similar experiences and I have lost a few through suicide.
"I can understand why as the pain is just unbelievable.
"It's far worse than labour pains as it's hitting the same nerves. It's like your body wants to dispel this thing stuck to you and your body goes into push overdrive.”
At the age of 51, Susan was told a urinary incontinence procedure would achieve her wish of being able to enjoy dancing.
Instead she left Torquay's Mount Stuart Hospital and endured pain so excruciating she thought she was going to die.
The now 60-year-old said: "I woke up after the surgery and thought I was going to die.
"The shock was so immense that I got into a brain fog. It was quite bizarre.
"I was in hospital for three days instead of 24 hours. I was not able to empty my bladder and had an infection. They struggled to put a catheter in.
Susan was diagnosed with an engorged bladder and pelvic hematoma as a result of bleeding lacerations during and after the gynecological surgery.
In 2010, a year after the first surgery Susan chose to close her business, and her partner left her.
She has since been in and out of hospital with doctors revealing a large proportion of mesh still remains inside her body.
She said: "Suddenly I went from being a happy, pretty businesswoman to an unhappy woman with vagina and urinary problems which he couldn't cope with.
"That was another trauma I had to deal with.
"What's misleading is surgeons call it tape but it's still mesh. It fuses into your body and sticks like glue.
"I can feel the mesh burning inside me like a chemical burn and cuts like a cheese wire.
"I don't feel suicidal now. I feel sad for the loss of the woman I was and I have come to terms with the woman I am now. That's my new goal and it's not easy."
Her youngest daughter Natalie said: "To hear your mother wail in pain day in and day out, and to have to see her on such a reduced personal level, as she was unable to go to the toilet without assistance left me in shock, not only because I felt like I had become a parental figure at such a young age, but also that such derogatory harm could be caused to my wonderful mum."
No one was available from Mount Stuart Hospital for a comment, and it remains unconfirmed whether the hospital still uses TVT mesh for urinary incontinence procedures.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6468732/vaginal-mesh-uk-operation-implants-susan-morgan/
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