Preview Newsletter
Ethicon Media Monitoring 9/11/2018
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Ethicon, J&J to Appeal Denial of New Trial in Prolift Transvaginal Mesh Case
| Harris Martin Publishing
HAMMOND, Ind. – Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson have asked the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to review an Indiana federal judge’s denial of their motion for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial following a $35 million jury verdict in a Prolift transvaginal mesh action. -
'You are there for us when we need you most': Prime Minister honours unsung heroes who 'epitomise the very best of the NHS' at Health Hero Awards
| Daily Mail
By Ben Spencer and George Edkinds
Theresa May last night paid tribute to the unsung health heroes who ‘epitomise the very best of the NHS’. -
Who’s to blame when a machine botches your surgery?
| Quartz
By Robert David Hart
Johnson & Johnson, for instance, is currently at the center of numerous legal battles worldwide over its vaginal mesh implants. -
Doctor’s Tip: Medical devices are poorly regulated, can cause harm
| Post Independent
By Dr. Greg Feinsinger
Polypropylene mesh has been used for years for hernia repairs, and in recent years it has been marketed under the brand name Prolift by Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, for pelvic floor laxity in middle-aged and older women — often related to the trauma of childbirth. -
Your health hero: The surgeon who fought for women whose pain was ignored for so long (and the truly remarkable runners-up in our celebration of shining NHS stars)
| Daily Mail
By Lucy Elkins
As Sohier Elneil started her medical training, her father had one particular piece of advice for his daughter: ‘Do something to help women’, he urged. -
Grieving son says use of mesh implants is a ‘form of murder '
| The Scotsman
By Kevan Christie
A grieving son whose mother died after having mesh implant surgery is set to have a meeting with the health secretary.
Online Sources
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Ethicon, J&J to Appeal Denial of New Trial in Prolift Transvaginal Mesh Case
| Harris Martin Publishing
HAMMOND, Ind. – Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson have asked the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to review an Indiana federal judge’s denial of their motion for judgment as a matter of law and a new trial following a $35 million jury verdict in a Prolift transvaginal mesh action.
According to a Sept. 6 notice of appeal, the companies are challenging an Aug. 8 ruling in which Judge Philip P. Simon of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana found the evidence supported the jury's findings.
Dr. Gregory Bales implanted Kaiser with the Prolift Anterior ...
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| Daily Mail
By Ben Spencer and George Edkinds
Theresa May last night paid tribute to the unsung health heroes who ‘epitomise the very best of the NHS’.
Presenting the Daily Mail’s Health Hero Awards, she praised the nominees for their ‘care, compassion and dedication’.
Speaking before a ceremony in central London, the Prime Minister said: ‘You are there for us when we need you most. Tonight we are here for you.
‘What unites you is your commitment, willingness to go the extra mile, your dedication. And that is true not just of you but all those people working in the National Health Service.’
Five finalists were shortlisted – a GP, a hospital cleaner, a volunteer on a dementia ward, a nurse and a surgeon. The award went to surgeon Sohier Elneil, a gynaecologist at University College London Hospital who was nominated for her role uncovering the vaginal mesh scandal.
‘Tonight we say thank you to a surgeon whose remarkable empathy and determination is not only transforming the lives of her own patients but improving care for others too,’ Mrs May said.+3
Presenting the Daily Mail’s Health Hero Awards, she praised the nominees for their ‘care, compassion and dedication’
Miss Elneil raised the alarm about vaginal mesh more than a decade ago when a patient was referred to her complaining of crippling pelvic pain.
She investigated and found plastic mesh used to help with urinary incontinence had disintegrated. After complex surgery to remove it, the patient was able to return to normal life.
Miss Elneil helped pioneer a procedure to safely remove vaginal mesh and dedicated her career to raising the alarm about the dangerous treatment despite the resistance of her profession.
The Government last year suspended the use of the mesh, which has been given to an estimated 100,000 women.
Mrs May congratulated Miss Elneil, saying: ‘You have shown the importance of championing the voice of patients. You have helped change the way in which mesh is used. You’ve made a real difference to people’s lives – you are truly a health hero.’
Miss Elneil, who won a £5,000 luxury holiday, said of her award: ‘I’m trying not to break down. It’s just amazing. The team will feel so validated.’
The Prime Minister also thanked the Daily Mail for launching the Health Hero Awards.
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Who’s to blame when a machine botches your surgery?
| Quartz
By Robert David Hart
Medicine is an imprecise art, and medical error, whether through negligence or honest mistake, is shockingly common.
Some experts believe it to be the third-biggest killer in the US. In the UK, as many as one in six patients receive an incorrect diagnosis from the National Health Service.
One of the great promises of artificial intelligence is to drastically reduce the number of mistakes made in the world of health care. For some conditions, the technology is already approaching—and in some cases matching and even exceeding—the success rates of the best specialists. Researchers at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, for instance, claim to have developed an AI system capable of outperforming cardiologists in identifying heart-attack risk by examining chest scans. The results of the study have yet to be published, but if the AI is indeed successful, the technology will be offered, for free, to NHS hospitals all over the UK. And this is just one of the latest in a string of successful medical image-reading AIs, including one that can diagnose skin cancer, another that can identify an eye condition responsible for around 10% of global childhood vision-loss, and a third that can recognize certain kinds of lung cancer.
That’s all great, but even if an AI is amazing, it will still fail sometimes. When the mistake is caused by a machine or an algorithm instead of a human, who is to blame?
This is not an abstract discussion. Defining both ethical and legal responsibility in the world of medical care is vital for building patients’ trust in the profession and its standards. It’s also essential in determining how to compensate individuals who fall victim to medical errors, and ensuring high-quality care. “Liability is supposed to discourage people from doing things they shouldn’t do,” says Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami.“We cannot have the ‘move-fast-break-things’ mantra of Silicon Valley in healthcare.”
“We cannot have the ‘move-fast-break-things’ mantra of Silicon Valley in healthcare,” adds Matthew Fenech, a former NHS doctor and current AI policy researcher at think tank Future Advocacy. “We need to put patients and safety first.” Currently, AIs used in medicine are billed as “decision aides,” meaning they are intended (at least in legal terms) to complement, not replace, a specialist’s opinion. “To an extent this is an immunizing tactic, but really it’s saying we are expecting doctors to challenge decisions,” says Charlotte Tschider, a fellow in health and intellectual property law at DePaul University. “These devices aren’t positioned right now as supplanting knowledge.”
In turn, this means the health care provider using the AI (typically a physician) remains liable for anything that might go wrong in all but a select number of cases. “Just because terrible things happen doesn’t mean the doctor has erred,” says Froomkin. “They might have, but that alone doesn’t prove it.”ZACK ROSEBRUGH FOR QUARTZ
The first scenario is when the physician (or the AI, in this case) acted as any other reasonable physician would have if in the same position. This is what is known as the “standard of care,” and is “what any reasonable doctor would be expected to do,” Froomkin explains. “If a doctor doesn’t follow this then they should be expected to justify and explain their decision.” For example, an algorithm might assess a patient, diagnose a bacterial infection, check the patient’s records, and prescribe a routine antibiotic. If that patient turns out to be allergic to that antibiotic, but that allergy was unknown to the patient and wasn’t in their records, the AI should be blameless—it couldn’t have known about the allergy any more than a competent human doctor would have.
Another category of scenarios is when the fault demonstrably lies with the developer of the product. This is like how car manufacturers are liable for faulty seatbelts or airbags, or how the producers of a pacemaker are liable for a malfunction (assuming it was properly implanted). Consider an AI that is found to read blood pressure levels wrong any time the algorithm is run on a weekend day.“You’re not just going to cut a patient open without thinking.”
But as long as there’s a doctor or another health professional in the loop to exercise their judgment, we’re unlikely to find ourselves in this latter situation, says Froomkin. The legal expectation is that a doctor will weigh the AI’s results and recommendations alongside other evidence, such as traditional diagnostic tests, medical history, and perhaps the advisory opinion of other doctors. “We do expect a degree of due diligence,” says Tschider. “It’s a tool, after all. Say you’re a surgeon and you look at your scalpel to find it’s all bent and messed up. You’re not just going to cut a patient open without thinking. You have responsibility there too.”
And if found negligent, it is the doctor who will be punished, and potentially banned or suspended from practice. “If [an AI] is used as decision support, then the doctor is 100% liable,” Froomkin says.
It will get tricky, Froomkin admits, when, or if, an AI becomes the standard of care. “The safe thing for the doctor to do then is to go with the standard,” he says. “Obviously if it says to cut off the patient’s head you wouldn’t do that, but it does put doctors in a tough position. In the future, we might want to consider making changes to liability law to protect doctors who overrule machines.”
Determining the levels of legal responsibility for AIs as a whole is a fairly new area and one that has yet to be seriously tested in court. What’s more, in a health care context, AIs’ current status as “decision aides” make it difficult for anyone to test their medical liability in the court system. “At the moment, it all looks quite uncertain and up in the air,” says Nicholson Price, an assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan. The first serious challenges related to the legal liability of artificial intelligence are most likely to be levied at autonomous vehicles, especially as they become more common on the roads.ZACK ROSEBRUGH FOR QUARTZ
A side effect of the way machine-learning algorithms work is that many function as black boxes. “There’s an inherent opacity about what exactly can and cannot be known with these systems,” Price says. In other words, it’s impossible to know precisely why an AI has made the decision it has—all we can ascertain is its conclusion, and that its conclusion is based on the information put into it. Add the fact that many algorithms (and the data used to train them) are proprietary, and it becomes impossible for a healthcare professional to assess the reliability of the “diagnostic aide” they’re using.
This opacity raises a number of questions. For example, how do we determine at what point an AI’s error crosses over from an unfortunate (yet inevitable) medical mistake to an unacceptable, possibly negligent one? And, can doctors or health care institutions using the AI be truly held liable for what might go wrong when they don’t even know the inner workings of the tool?“Why would we as a society want that? Personhood is just a legal fiction.”
One solution would be to hold the AI system itself responsible in all cases, by considering it a kind of legal personhood. This would be tricky and “a little weird,” says Price. For starters, how does one punish or reprimand a machine? They don’t exactly have bank accounts or earn paychecks, so monetary penalties mean nothing. Nor do they have bodies to incarcerate. “Maybe someone has come up with an explanation as to why [legal personhood of medical AIs] is useful, but if they have then I certainly haven’t heard of it,” Froomkin says. “What’s in it for any of us? I just don’t see the point. It’s a liability shield. Why would we as a society want that? Personhood is just a legal fiction.”
That said, their manufacturers certainly do have both bank accounts and paychecks. “It’s not like [IBM’s]Watson has a bunch of money sitting around,” Price says. But, “IBM does—a lot.”
Holding accountable the company behind an AI would be basically what happens today when manufacturers of medical equipment produce faulty goods or do not adequately warn users of risks. For example, in October 2017, hundreds of patients in the UK sued the manufacturer of allegedly “defective” hip replacements in one of the largest product-liability group actions in the country’s history. Though the court ruled against the patients in May 2018, determining that they “did not suffer an adverse reaction to metal debris,” such cases against manufacturers are relatively common. Johnson & Johnson, for instance, is currently at the center of numerous legalbattles worldwide over its vaginal mesh implants. The company’s purported failure to conduct proper clinical trials coupled with its aggressive marketing that allegedly downplayed complications resulting from the procedure, have left many women debilitated and in severe pain, often requiring numerous surgeries to try and remove the mesh.
Going after an AI manufacturer in the case of medical error might make sense given the current state of machine learning. In the future, though, it may be feasible to hold the AI itself accountable.ZACK ROSEBRUGH FOR QUARTZ
Price speculates that many years from now, it may be possible to license a given AIs for medical practice—meaning they could also be “disbarred” after making too many mistakes, much like real physicians are through negligence. “It’s a little like driverless cars,” he says. “You can imagine a scenario where an autonomous vehicle has to register with the [Department of Motor Vehicles], and if it makes too many mistakes, then its license is taken away. Similarly, you can imagine a similar set up where we treat an algorithm as we would, say, an oncologist.”
Whatever regulations are implemented, it’s vital that they ensure both the continued trust in the medical establishment and also facilitate the swift development and rollout of safe and effective AI systems. More widespread use of AI in medicine could mean you are less likely to end up with scissors, sponges, or scalpels left inside you after surgery—but we still need to know who’s at fault in the rare cases that happens and you inevitably want them taken back out.
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Doctor’s Tip: Medical devices are poorly regulated, can cause harm
| Post Independent
By Dr. Greg Feinsinger
Medical devices range from robots that perform surgery to lens implants, cardiac stents and pacemakers.
The medical device industry is a $300-billion-a-year industry, that has even more influence in Washington than Big Pharm — in 2017 they spent $64 million on lobbying.
A few weeks ago, there was a showing at Paepcke Auditorium in Aspen of a recently-released documentary available on Netflix, called "The Bleeding Edge."
The director, Kirby Dick, was there for an interview and Q and A after the showing.
The film is about the poor regulation of the medical device industry, and how this is causing harm to patients.
Most people, including doctors who recommend or use medical devices, assume that the FDA uses the same scrutiny for these devices that it does for pharmaceuticals.
However, that's not the case — many new devices that come on the market haven't been proven to be effective or safe in humans. Following are four examples from "The Bleeding Edge" that illustrate the problem.
Essure is a small metal coil used for female sterilization.
The coil is placed in women's fallopian tubes in an office setting — it induces scarring, which prevents sperm from entering the tubes.
The device was developed by Conceptus, which was later bought by Bayer.
It was approved by the FDA in 2002, based on short-term studies of fewer than one or two years, even though it was intended for lifetime use.
In the last several years, thousands of women have complained of side effects, including perforations of their tubes, chronic pain and bleeding sometimes leading to hysterectomies, plus hundreds of unintended pregnancies.
One of the problems with this device is that in some women it causes an autoimmune response, which results in several other symptoms including headaches and feeling crummy.
Many Essure devices have had to be removed, although removal is difficult (you can't just pull it out when scar tissue has formed).
In July of this year, Bayer finally announced it would halt U.S. sales by the end of the year.
In the meantime, Bayer is paying out millions of dollars for lawsuits, but is still making billions of dollars by continuing to sell the product.
There are several types of hip replacements, including metal-on-metal cobalt devices.
An orthopedist in Alaska was featured in "The Bleeding Edge,' who had this type of replacement himself, and later developed multiple symptoms, including brain fog, and eventually a complete mental breakdown.
His blood level of cobalt was 100 times the normal limit. The joint replacement was removed — with difficulty — and replaced with another type of device.
Within a month his symptoms resolved.
There are 10 million people worldwide with cobalt hip, knee and shoulder replacements, and it turns out that many of these people are suffering from similar symptoms.
Problems have also occurred with cobalt-on-polyethylene implants. If you have a cobalt-containing implant, have your blood cobalt level checked periodically.
Polypropylene mesh has been used for years for hernia repairs, and in recent years it has been marketed under the brand name Prolift by Ethicon, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, for pelvic floor laxity in middle-aged and older women — often related to the trauma of childbirth.
It costs $25 to make, but is sold for $2,000. It was introduced in 2005, bypassing FDA scrutiny due to being similar to the previously approved hernia mesh.
Prolift causes an inflammatory response and scarring, and as the scar matures the tissues with which it comes in contact contract, creating a "rigid, hard object" around the vagina, bladder and urethra (the tube urine passes though as it exits the bladder).
Many women who underwent this procedure started complaining of pain and other symptoms.
Their complaints were brushed off by doctors, but eventually complaints became severe and numerous enough that they could no longer be ignored.
Unfortunately, it's essentially impossible to remove all the mesh in a patient with complaints, due to scar tissue in and around it.
According to the documentary, the surgeons who developed prototypes knew there were problems, but marketing was already underway, and "marketing won out over science."
Currently, Johnson and Johnson has been hit with $300 million in lawsuits, but keeps marketing their product because of $683 billion in profits.
The Da Vinci is a robotic surgical system that costs $2 million, made by Intuitive Surgical.
It was cleared by the FDA in 2000, and is used for operations such as prostatectomies and hysterectomies.
There is a long learning curve for surgeons wanting to become adept at using this technology, and when the Da Vinci first came out, two weeks of intense training was promised for each surgeon who was going to use it.
Within a short time, the training was reduced to two days, and the company's reps pushed surgeons into using the technology before they were proficient.
One surgeon in the film, who is an expert in robotic surgery, stated that it took him 200-300 procedures before he felt proficient.
Serious complications have occurred using the Da Vinci System, including vaginal cuff dehiscence in gyn procedures — where closure of the incision at the top of the vagina following a hysterectomy fails, in some instances resulting in women's intestines falling into and protruding from their vaginas.
Of note is that robotic surgery is more expensive, takes longer, and has poorer results than traditional surgery.
The film makes the following suggestions for protecting yourself before someone puts a medical device in you or when a surgeon suggests robotic surgery:
(1) Do your own research on the device.
(2) Get a second opinion.
(3) Find out how many procedures the surgeon has done.
(4) Have a patient advocate come with you to your appointments.
(5) Go to openpaymentdata.cms.gov to see if the surgeon has a financial interest in the recommended medical device.
(6) Keep in mind that new, cutting edge technology isn't necessarily better.
(7) Realize that surgeons often have cozy relationships with medical device reps, who influence their recommendations.
Medical devices such as pacemakers for serious cardiac rhythm disturbances, and stents for a heart attack, can save your life.
But some medical devices can make you sick and even kill you.
These devices all need to be proven to be effective and safe before they are used in humans, and physicians using them need to be properly trained.
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| Daily Mail
By Lucy Elkins
As Sohier Elneil started her medical training, her father had one particular piece of advice for his daughter: ‘Do something to help women’, he urged.
Were he still alive today he would surely be bursting with pride, for she has not only lived up to his expectations, she must surely have far exceeded them.
And it’s in recognition of just how much she’s done for women that last night she was awarded the Daily Mail’s Health Hero award, at a gala evening attended by the Prime Minister Theresa May, Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health, Professor Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer for England, and other leading figures from across the NHS.
As the Mail reports today, British women currently rank 18th out of 28 European countries for life expectancy because of the health struggles they face.
But Miss Elneil has spent her career doing all she can to challenge the painful realities behind statistics like those — for she is the surgeon who was prepared to listen when women started to complain that the tension-free vaginal tape that had been surgically inserted to help with incontinence or prolapse had left them in crippling pain.
While many others within the medical profession turned a blind eye, telling women the problem was ‘all in their mind’, ‘Suzy’, as she is known to her patients, listened — and decided to investigate.
She was one of the first to perfect a way to remove the mesh — a complex and difficult operation that involves painstakingly removing tiny shards of the tape which, in some cases, will have disintegrated into numerous pieces, each embedding deeply into the patient’s internal tissue.
This work has been on top of her role as a full-time consultant urogynaecological surgeon at University College London Hospital, specialising in treating women’s problems such as prolapse and incontinence.
Miss Elneil often operates late at night and works most weekends — she also hasn’t had a holiday in four years — simply to make herself available for the numerous women who seek her help.
One patient described desperately contacting her for help and Miss Elneil responding by email the next day — on Boxing Day.
She feels that she must, as she explains: ‘The numbers of women wanting to see me are overwhelming. I’m trying my best to transform lives, but sometimes when I operate I feel bereft because when I see what has happened to a woman I know just how much she must have been suffering. I have seen women who are in so much pain as a result of their tape they feel suicidal.’
Such is the impact this remarkable surgeon has had on her patients’ lives that when the Daily Mail launched their hunt for the 2018 Health Hero of the year, it wasn’t just her patients from across the UK who inundated us with letters and emails in praise of her work, it was also their husbands.
‘Miss Elneil is the first consultant to actually help my wife,’ wrote one. ‘She is the most skilled, compassionate, wonderful, caring consultant I have ever met. She works tirelessly to help so many women who have been mutilated by mesh and they feel like their life has come to an end. She’s an angel.’
In a phrase that was repeated time and again, one patient said: ‘She was the only surgeon who listened to me after years of trying to get help for mesh pain.’
Retired accountant Lynne Sharman was particularly fulsome in her praise. ‘I can’t thank her enough for what she has done for me’ says Lynne, 62, who lives in Reading.
‘She has this air of calm and tranquility. I don’t think she ever sleeps as she has so much to do but if she is tired she doesn’t let it show.’
Miss Elneil is clearly touched by the reaction from her patients. ‘I get some lovely cards. Amazing letters from women thanking me,’ she says.
Yet she’s has also attracted a very different reaction from within her own profession, sometimes facing outright hostility from those who thought she was wrong to raise the issue of the tape in the first place.
Carl Hengan, a professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, says: ‘It’s very difficult to stand firm when you’re going against a swathe of colleagues, who’ve used various ruses to undermine her — I’m sure it hurts. But it doesn’t stop her.’
Miss Elneil herself says there was never any question of giving up. ‘There was resistance, and some people thought “if we ignore her she might go away” but I wasn’t prepared to do that,’ she says with a glint in her eye. The numbers of women wanting to see me are overwhelming. I have seen women who are in so much pain as a result of their tape they feel suicidalDr Elneil
Inevitably, her commitment and daunting work load have come at some cost to her home life. But her husband, a lawyer and a childhood friend, has been a tower of support.
‘We are lucky in that we have a lot of input from family and friends, and a lot of support,’ she says. She has tried to take one day off at weekends — but with a full general list as well as extra cases of tape removal — and her commitment to ensuring she trains other surgeons, to ensure she hands over her skills — there is barely time to breathe.
And then, of course, there is the research — last year, for example, she co-authored a report for the first time identifying the rate of complications among women given the mesh.
As vindication of her patients and her work — and the Mail’s long-running campaign on this issue — the NHS recently announced it would halt the use of the mesh for incontinence.
But anyone who thinks Miss Elneil has achieved all she wants to achieve would be mistaken — there are still many women who need their tape removed, and that’s not all.
‘I would like us to live in a world where women feel safe, where they feel they can talk to anyone about their health concerns and not be dismissed,’ she says.
‘I’d like to change that — I’ve passed the age barrier of 50 and I have so much more to do, and now so little time to do it.’
GP WHO GIVES ROUND-THE-CLOCK CARE
For 23 years, Bournemouth GP Dr Susan Walker-Date has offered the patients at her practice enviable continuity of care.
She’s always prided herself on being an old-fashioned family doctor, one who knows her patients well.
But the mother of five truly goes above and beyond — doing home visits on her days off and during lunch breaks, collecting patients’ prescriptions for them if they’re ill and alone, and sometimes delivering the medicines late at night.
Even while she’s on holiday she’ll ring with test results so, she says, patients aren’t left waiting and ‘worrying’. Her colleagues say she’s often at work before they arrive, and leaves after them.
When Lezzette Hession’s mother Kim was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2015, Dr Walker-Date ‘never made her come into the surgery, she always visited her at home — even if it was after her other rounds had finished’.
‘I’ll never forget that on one occasion as Mum grew weaker, the doctor finished work late at 9pm and then drove to our house. She was such a comfort to my mother in her last weeks, visiting any time we rang. I’ve never known anybody so caring,’ says Lezzette.
All this extra work while also looking after her own family, including her disabled 20-year-old daughter, who has Rett syndrome, a rare neurological condition which affects brain development.
For many years Dr Walker-Date, 54, chaired the Rett UK Charity, campaigning for specialist clinics, running family weekends for those affected, fundraising and helping write the Rett care guidelines.
A report for the Care Quality Commission described her work on Rett as ‘outstanding’.
Susan decided to become a doctor aged eight after breaking her leg and watching hospital staff at work — winning a place at grammar school, she became the first in her family to go to university.
To her patients, including Ian Jones, who nominated her, she is a real-life Superwoman.
‘After 25 heart attacks and three strokes, I’m convinced Dr Walker-Date is the reason I’m still here,’ says Ian, a retired schools examinations officer. ‘I don’t know where she gets the incredible energy from. She’s a GP in a million.’
DEMENTIA CARER IS ‘SIMPLY THE BEST’
At AN age when others might be easing back a bit, John Gaunt, 89, spends two days a week as a volunteer on a dementia ward at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
It’s demanding work, requiring skill and kindness which John dispenses by the bucketload, combined with a dedication and energy that make him unique, say his colleagues — and it’s why they nominated him for the Health Hero awards.
They described how John goes to great lengths to treat each patient as an individual, thoroughly researching their background to pull out information that might help him bring back memories and connect with that person.
Then, with a characteristic wave of his hands, he gets to work, listening and talking, singing, even dancing — whatever it takes to put patients at ease.
‘His charisma and charm truly brighten up the ward,’ says Danielle Wilde, who leads dementia care on the ward.
‘John is one of the most interesting and energetic colleagues I have ever worked with and the staff look forward to his visits as much as the patients do.’
‘He’s simply the best,’ adds Richard Scarth, who oversees the Royal Free Charity’s 900 volunteers. ‘I get more positive feedback about John than anyone.’
John arrives promptly for his shift at 9am and although he should clock off at 1pm is, despite his age, often still working late into the afternoon.
‘I’m not going to dash off home just because my shift is over,’ he says. ‘I go when I feel I have done what I can with my patients.’ Officially he works two days a week — but sometimes ends up working more.
John, who lost his wife Betty to Parkinson’s and cancer in 2000, was inspired to become a volunteer after visiting the hospital for radiotherapy for his prostate cancer four years ago. ‘I left it too long, so they can’t cure it,’ he says, matter-of-factly.
‘When I went in for my treatment I saw a sign asking for volunteers and thought, “I could do that”.’
The retired illustrator used to run his own stationery business, and adds: ‘When I was in business I would go home asking myself “why do I do this?” — but now I leave knowing I’ve helped make a real difference. It’s the best thing I have ever done.’
NURSE WHO’S A ROCK FOR HER PATIENTS
There is clearly something special about Amy Semper, the nurse who walked for three hours in the snow to get to work, did a double shift — 24 hours in all during that emergency — then walked home again.
Her colleagues and patients don’t need to be told how dedicated Amy is to her work.
As well as those snowbound days last winter, they know about the double shifts she does when the unit is short-staffed (she would rather work a double than allow patients to be put at risk, say her colleagues), and the extra hours after work she devotes to talking with patients or catching up on admin she’s delayed doing to spend time with them.
Sometimes she has to be told she must go home.
And then there are the simple but kind gestures: no birthday is forgotten, with Amy always arranging a cake for patients or staff, often baking it herself.
And her job is not an easy one, for Amy is a ward manager on a secure mental health unit, a ‘difficult environment’, as Jocelyn White, a senior manager at the Lincolnshire mental health unit where Amy works, describes it.
Yet year after year, Amy, who is 27, has forsaken Christmas with her own close-knit family to spend the day at the unit, arriving early to prepare festive treats.
She also takes patients for home visits to see their loved ones (for some this can be for the first time in years). ‘She helped make me part of my family again,’ says one grateful patient. Another said simply: ‘Amy has changed my life.’
When asked about her willingness to go the extra mile Amy says: ‘People need to feel supported, and that’s what I want to do — I want to be their rock while they are going through this bad time, and I will do whatever I have to do to help them through.’
‘And it really pays dividends — one of my ex-patients is training to be a vet,’ she says with pride.
CLEANER WITH A HEART OF GOLD
how much Yakub Vali, 53, means to patients and staff can be seen from the scores of thank you cards the father of three has at the home he shares with wife Maimuna, 53.
Some of the writing may be shaky, but the gratitude and love is clear.
As Yvonne Jeanes, the lead physiotherapist at the specialist stroke unit at Royal Preston Hospital in
Lancashire where he works, explains: ‘Yakub is such a gorgeous person — the entire ward, patients and staff, just love him. I can’t tell you the difference that he makes.’
This much-loved figure isn’t a medic, a nurse or a physio, but a cleaner.
That he’s good at the work he’s employed to do is immediately evident when you arrive on the ward.
‘Families always comment on how clean it is,’ says Yvonne — indeed he’s credited with playing a key role in helping reduce infection rates on the ward.
‘When Yakub’s on holiday it takes three people to do his job, and the ward still doesn’t look as good,’ adds Yvonne, ‘Yakub just never stops.’
But he’s even more distinguished by the way he performs his unofficial duties. Yakub, who moved to the UK aged 16 from a small village in India and has never had a day off sick in 13 years, starts his 7am shift by checking on each patient to see if they need anything.
He’s constantly on the look-out for patients, fetching endless cups of tea, or calling for a nurse if someone can’t reach their buzzer.
‘Recently, a lady who was recovering from hip surgery fell in the middle of the ward — Yakub was cleaning a table and somehow reached her and caught her with lightning reflexes,’ says Yvonne.
‘He saved her from another serious hip fracture and in doing so, potentially saved her life.’
When patients are discharged, he makes it his duty to wave them off — and his daughter says that when he arrives home at night, Yakub talks non-stop about the patients and how they progressed, who left the ward, who is doing well or anyone he is worried about.
To the staff, he is another pair of hands who is a vital part of the team, and often acts as physio assistant, taking patients by their arm to help them walk, and encouraging them all the way.
At Christmas, Yakub arrives at the ward with chocolates and sweets for patients and staff alike.
‘He is the most conscientious, courteous, humble and helpful member of staff on the ward,’ says Yvonne. ‘He is definitely our hero!’
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Grieving son says use of mesh implants is a ‘form of murder '
| The Scotsman
By Kevan Christie
A grieving son whose mother died after having mesh implant surgery is set to have a meeting with the health secretary. Mark Baxter, will join Scottish Labour MSP and mesh campaigner Neil Findlay in sitting down with Jeane Freeman to discuss the circumstances surrounding his mother Eileen’s death, on a date of his choice. The Scotsman revealed last week that Eileen Baxter, 75, who died on 27 August, was believed to be the first person in Scotland to have sacrocolopexy mesh repair – an implant to fix a pelvic organ prolapse – listed as an underlying cause of death. Mr Baxter, from Loanhead, Midlothian, described the decision to treat thousands of women with mesh repair implants as a “form of murder”.
Mrs Baxter, a great-grandmother married to 79-year-old Chic, had multiple organ failure listed as directly leading to her death after being admitted to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with internal bleeding, sickness and diarrhoea the week before. Mr Baxter said: “It’s a ticking time bomb – they’ve got to stop this – I’m totally shocked that this has been allowed to go on in Scotland. “I’ve been looking into mesh and how it affects women and what it does once it’s inside someone and it’s serious stuff. “If someone had done that to my mum on the street they’d be in jail.
“Basically, I feel the companies should not have been allowed to manufacture mesh for medical use and there’s not been enough research into the product. “The material that was put into my mum and other woman goes rock solid, it becomes sharp and it starts affecting nerve endings and cuts through the bladder and the bowel. “It’s like putting razor blades into the patient. “No wonder my mother was ill and had to be on liquid morphine and everything – she must have been in excruciating pain but too proud to say it.”
Around 1,800 Scottish women a year were given mesh implants for bladder problems and pelvic organ prolapse in the two decades before its use was suspended in 2014. It is still used in exceptional circumstances but in the six months to March this year there were 33 operations carried out – compared to over 1,100 in a similar period in 2013-14. Elaine Holmes, from the Scottish Mesh Survivors group said: “We’ve been overwhelmed by the global support and messages of condolence, support for the Baxter family and support for the Scottish Mesh Campaign ftom as far as New Zealand and Australia. “We know the Scottish Government can’t ban mesh as it’s a devolved matter but they can stop it immediately through procurement. Mesh is reserved and it’s only the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency that can ban it. “Our government through procurement decide what goes on hospital shelves – they can choose to clear the shelves and never use mesh again, but there has to be political will.”
Mr Findlay said the substance had left “thousands of women across the world debilitated”. He added: “Some have lost organs, many have witnessed the end of their careers, their relationships and some have lost their homes. “I hope the cabinet secretary for health, Jeane Freeman, will take a much more robust line on this issue than her predecessor and I will be pushing for this when I meet her.” A spokesman from the Scottish Government said last night: “The Scottish Government does not hold information on individual patients or their treatment. “But as we made clear last week we will give any information supplied to us on Ms Baxter’s case very careful consideration.”
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