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Ethicon Media Monitoring
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Mesh hearing by Baroness Cumberlege coming to Oxfordshire
| Bicester Advertisr
A government tour of the UK, led by Conservative peer Baroness Cumberlege, is hearing testimony from women who have experienced complications following implants, and will be in South Oxfordshire next Monday. -
Paralysed Newport mum 'not given appropriate care'
| BBC News
A dance school owner fears she may never perform again after an operation to remove a vaginal mesh left her paralysed in one leg. Gemma Mulcahy, of Newport, is currently paying for private rehabilitation - but says delays in being seen by a specialist is hampering her recovery. -
Leader comment: Urgent need for review of surgical mesh implants
| The Scotsman
The death of 75-year-old Eileen Baxter shows the use of surgical mesh implants must be reassessed. First, do no harm. This advice for those aspiring to become doctors has stood the test of thousands of years for a reason. -
‘There is a horrible pattern of women not being listened to’: Mhairi Black backs dying gran’s fight for victims of mesh
| The Sunday Post
By Marion Scott
The SNP MP hugged Marion McMillan and promised to do all she could to ensure her death will not be in vain. Marion, 70, who has been told she is “too ill” for medical help after doctors sent her to see a psychiatrist instead of for the scan that could have saved her life, is begging the NHS to monitor the health of mesh victims. -
‘The pain was instant’: The devastating impact of vaginal mesh surgery
| New Scientist
By Julia Brown
Millions of women over the last two decades have undergone vaginal mesh surgery, but it has recently become clear just how many have experienced severe complications.
Online Sources
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Mesh hearing by Baroness Cumberlege coming to Oxfordshire
| Bicester Advertisr
A government tour of the UK, led by Conservative peer Baroness Cumberlege, is hearing testimony from women who have experienced complications following implants, and will be in South Oxfordshire next Monday.
Mesh implants are made of polypropylene plastic and used to treat incontinence or prolapse, from pregnancy and childbirth.
Kath Sansom, from national campaign group Sling The Mesh, said: “The pain this procedure can cause is indescribable.
“I’ve been in contact with many women in Oxfordshire who are suffering serious complications from vaginal mesh implants. This procedure was being promoted as a ‘quick fix’ for urinary stress incontinence – but the plastic can twist, shrink, go brittle and degrade inside the body."
In July, NHS England accepted a recommendation to temporarily suspend vaginal mesh implants until March 2019.
The session is being held at The Wallingford Community Association Centre, 70 Kinecroft, Wallingford, on Monday, from 11am to 1pm. Travel expenses can be reimbursed and family members may attend.
A free counselling hotline will be available for the duration of the review on weekdays between 10am and 6pm on 0121 314 7075. Those unable to attend can email their experiences to reviewteam@kcl.ac.uk.
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Paralysed Newport mum 'not given appropriate care'
| BBC News
A dance school owner fears she may never perform again after an operation to remove a vaginal mesh left her paralysed in one leg.
Gemma Mulcahy, of Newport, is currently paying for private rehabilitation - but says delays in being seen by a specialist is hampering her recovery.
Aneurin Bevan Health Board says it will investigate the mother-of-two's claims.
But Mrs Mulcahy fears the longer she remains in a wheelchair the more her leg muscles will waste away.
She said: "It's hard, it's very hard, to go from being so active and being completely fine before an operation to being left like this.
"Everything becomes more difficult, going on holiday was extremely difficult, everywhere we go getting the wheelchair in and out of the car, taking the kids to school, getting up in the morning, getting them ready for the school run, everything is so much harder than it was.
"We don't know if it's permanent, if it's something that could get better or if it's something that could completely heal and that's hard to deal with."
Mrs Mulcahy, who set up Fantasy Feet dance school in Merthyr Tydfil in 2006 after being a professional dancer at Disneyland resorts in Paris and Tokyo, paid for private surgery in July to have vaginal mesh removed.
However, the removal went wrong and left her numb in her left leg from the hip down.
"It's affected my career, my ability to teach as well as the ability to look after my two children," she added.
She has since been transferred to the NHS for treatment, and hopes to be referred to specialists at Rookwood in Cardiff to speed up her recovery.
Rookwood Hospital - which is operated by Cardiff and Vale University Health Board - is one of only 12 spinal rehab units in the UK and is also a regional neuro-rehabilitation hospital as well.
Mrs Mulcahy said: "There's still no diagnosis for what has happened, which is worrying. And I'm not clearer as to when I will be seen by a specialist.
"I'm currently paying for private rehab - which is costing around £300 a week. However, all that is doing is stopping me from deteriorating further.
"The sooner I get to Rookwood to be assessed and we get a definitive diagnosis to what's actually wrong, then I can start getting specialised treatment."
A spokesman for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board said: "We're sorry to hear that Ms Mulcahy has concerns about the care she has received. We would ask that she makes contact with us directly so we can look into her claims."
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Leader comment: Urgent need for review of surgical mesh implants
| The Scotsman
The death of 75-year-old Eileen Baxter shows the use of surgical mesh implants must be reassessed.
First, do no harm. This advice for those aspiring to become doctors has stood the test of thousands of years for a reason.
Patients must have confidence that when they go to see a doctor they are in safe hands.
And so the grim revelation reported by The Scotsman that a surgical mesh implant had, for the first time, been formally recorded as an underlying cause of a death – that of 75-year-old Eileen Baxter from Loanhead – prompted questions at the highest level yesterday, with calls for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to set up an urgent review.
More than 100,000 of women across the UK have been given the implants over the past two decades, but complaints have been growing from patients who have found themselves in permanent pain – sometimes so bad that they are unable to work or even walk.
Sturgeon told Holyrood that in the six months to March the procedure had been carried out 33 times, compared to more than 11,000 times in the same period of 2013/14. She also pledged to give calls for a review “careful consideration”.
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency is responsible for deciding which medical devices can be used by the NHS, so it may be the appropriate body to re-examine the safety of the implants.
But if the Scottish Government does not hold its own review, it needs to press the MHRA to do so for the sake of future patients and the thousands who already have mesh implants, who will understandably be extremely worried.
There are experts who have argued against a complete ban on mesh implants – such as Scotland’s Chief Medical Office, Dr Catherine Calderwood – on the grounds that there is little or no alternative for some patients. And such views need to be taken seriously.
It may be that a problem can occur in specific cases for reasons that are not well enough understood.
If the implants can be used safely to help patients, then they should be. But, given someone has died and there have been numerous accounts of serious, life-changing problems, the medical world needs to establish the facts – and quickly.
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| The Sunday Post
By Marion Scott
The SNP MP hugged Marion McMillan and promised to do all she could to ensure her death will not be in vain. Marion, 70, who has been told she is “too ill” for medical help after doctors sent her to see a psychiatrist instead of for the scan that could have saved her life, is begging the NHS to monitor the health of mesh victims.
The Paisley grandmother said: “Doctors kept denying the pain I was suffering in my back was because of mesh. They told me it was all in my head when in fact I was suffering from the early stages of cancer.
“If they had sent me for a scan instead of sending me to a psychiatrist, I would have had a fighting chance. Nothing can help me now, but my dying wish is to make sure all women with mesh complications get the proper care and monitoring that was denied to me.”
Ms Black, the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, said: “It’s clear there is a horrible pattern emerging here of a large group of women reporting serious issues and nobody taking them seriously.”
She has pledged to back Marion’s Wish and will write of her concerns to Scotland’s health secretary, Jeane Freeman, and said: “It’s clear many women have suffered and someone has to grasp this, sit down with them, find out what help and support they need, and make sure they get it.
“There are far too many questions on mesh for anyone to even consider continuing to implant women.”
Meanwhile Mark Baxter, 52, whose mother Eileen, 75, from Loanhead, Midothian, last month became the first woman in the UK to have mesh listed on her death certificate, has revealed he is set to meet with Freeman within days.
He said: “We will fight in mum’s name to have mesh removed from our hospitals so it can’t hurt others.
“Mum used to get up on the dance floor and jive. But from the minute she was given mesh she was left in unbearable pain and doctors refused to believe what was causing it until it was too late and we lost her.”
Eileen died from multiple organ failure after having a mesh implant for pelvic organ prolapse five years ago.
Marion says she wants mesh listed on her death certificate too. She said: “The minute they put mesh inside me, they signed my death warrant.”
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‘The pain was instant’: The devastating impact of vaginal mesh surgery
| New Scientist
By Julia Brown
Millions of women over the last two decades have undergone vaginal mesh surgery, but it has recently become clear just how many have experienced severe complications. In our main interview this week, we hear from Sohier Elneil, one of the few surgeons in the UK qualified to remove mesh. Here, Kath Sansom shares her story of what it’s like to undergo the treatment and the impact it had on her life. She had a mesh sling implanted in March 2015 to treat mild stress urinary incontinence. It was removed seven months later. She now runs the Sling the Mesh campaign to raise awareness of mesh complications and support mesh-injured women in the UK.
How did you feel after the mesh was implanted?
The pain was instant. I struggled to walk. The pain down the backs of my legs felt like really deep, heavy toothache. It hurt me to walk, sit, lie. I couldn’t get any relief. I had cheese-wiring pains in my vagina, burning pain so bad I couldn’t even use a tampon. In the weeks before, I did a boxing class, high-board diving and mountain biking. I went from that to excruciating pain.
How did the pain evolve?
You’re supposed to be better within a week, but it gradually got worse and worse.
Did you know about the possible side effects before the operation?
I was told I was having a sling put in to hold stuff up. I was told it was simple, it was the gold standard, low risk and really easy. I was told there might be a bit of bleeding and a bit of pain but that it was just short term and it would settle.
If you were told: “You can have this little operation but you might lose your sex life”, you wouldn’t see anyone for dust. Or if your doctor said: “You can have this little operation and you might not be able to walk – but at least you won’t wee your pants.” You’d run out the door!
Were you in pain the whole time you had the mesh implant?
Some days were worse than others. I discovered high-dose nerve blockers, high-dose painkillers, which helped though never truly took the pain away. What’s awful is that you just get used to living with high levels of pain – because you have no choice.
I was self-employed at the time, so I had to go to work. It was difficult but I cracked on because I had to. Luckily, my children are older – 16 and 21. But even though my story isn’t anything compared to the hell that some women go through, even for me, it upset my children to see their once-vibrant mum coming home from work and having to get in the bath and then get in bed early because I hurt. I never let them see my tears, but they know, kids are not daft. It has affected them to see me compromised.
So you had the mesh removed. How did that go?
I got a lot better, although I’m right up there at the good end of recovery compared with other women. I can still swim. But even so, it’s a new normal. I have to be very careful when putting impact on my legs, I have to be careful how I move. If I overdo things I can end up in pain the next day and having to take strong painkillers. I’ve got all these pain relievers in my bag just in case, because I’m never quite sure what might trigger it off.
Why do you think the implanting of mesh has gone on for as long as it has, in light of such complications?
A lot of the quality-of-life questionnaires, which are used to collect data for clinical trials, focus on if the operation has fixed the original problem. Yes, the women have had their incontinence fixed, their prolapse fixed, but their lives may have been completely destroyed. And the questionnaires are just not capturing that data. If you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the answers.
So a lot of trials that find mesh is low risk and effective. Well yes, because they’re not actually looking at whether mesh causes pain, loss of sex life, constant urinary tract infections. And that’s really key to this issue and how it has gone on for so long.
What would you say is the worst aspect of your experience?
You go from being a healthy mum with a bit of an embarrassing problem, to suddenly your life is turned on its head. And you’ve got to accept that this is now your life because even if you have a mesh removal, you will never go back to the woman you were.
I’ve had a relatively good recovery, so accepting my new normal has been a lot easier than for some others. For example there’s one woman who was super fit and into martial arts. She’s now in a mobility scooter. On a psychological level, it’s really hard to get your head around how that can result from a “simple” operation that was supposed to improve your quality of life. It takes your breath away.
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