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THE HSE HAS told doctors that women who are due to undergo vaginal mesh procedures should be informed of the possible severe complications like longterm pain and erosion of the device into the bladder.
A learning notice was issued to hospitals on 26 June, following a meeting between Minister for Health Simon Harris and three women who have experienced complications from these surgeries.
One of the women who attended this meeting and who shared her experience with the minister, Lesley-Anne Stephens, told TheJournal.ie she was “pleasantly surprised” by how empathetic he and his officials were.
She was 36 when she had a procedure to address urinary stress incontinence. Now, at 39 she is in constant pain and has to use a walking stick for support.
“We were initially only given 30 minutes, so we had four minutes each to tell our stories but when we got in there he just told us we had as long as we needed, he was going to give us his time, so that was absolutely unbelievable,” she said of her meeting with Minister Harris. “They really listened to us, so we were extremely happy when we came out.”
Vaginal mesh devices are used in procedures to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse, conditions woman can suffer after childbirth.
There has been global scrutiny surrounding the devices because of serious complications suffered by some women and a partial ban on their use was issued in the UK at the end of last year. Campaigners in Ireland are pushing for a ban in this country until a full assessment of the risks and complications associated with the devices is carried out.
Lesley-Anne Stephens has had two partial removal operations in Ireland but she was still experiencing pain so she recently travelled to England for treatment by a specialist in this area, Dr Sohier Elneil. She performed a full removal but also had to perform a urethroplasty and a full vaginal reconstruction.
“I was damaged so badly from the mesh that she had to just fully reconstruct me inside. Those are separate operations for most people. She couldn’t tell me for sure whether it was all gone or not, she was extremely honest with me – because it was broken into tiny fragments inside my body she couldn’t be sure. There was a piece of it stuck into a lump of my muscle, she said it was like taking hair out of chewing gum.”
‘The ability to treat complications’
The notice issued to Irish doctors last month stated that controversy about the use of mesh devices “is not unique to Ireland”. It advised doctors that mesh procedures for stress incontinence should be reserved for patients who have been assessed in an appropriate uro-gynaecological/urological setting and in whom conservative measures have failed.
“Surgeons must ensure they have appropriate facilities and training plus the ability to either treat the patients who develop complications themselves or an approved, appropriate pathway to refer on to another,” it stated.
The notice also addressed the procedure for telling patients about possible complications, including the “uncommon complications” such as erosion into the bladder and longterm pain.
It noted that the NHS has a 16-page leaflet on these procedures and said a national consent form is now being prepared by the HSE. The Chief Medical Officer is also preparing a report on these devices for the minister.
In the meantime, doctors have been told to make patients aware that complications may necessitate the removal of the device and that this may be “extremely difficult”.
This is because the mesh device is designed to allow tissue to grow in and around it, so it can act as a supporting wall for nearby muscle or organs.
‘I cried all the way home’
Seven weeks on from her major surgery, Lesley-Ann Stephens is finding her recovery slow and difficult. And she is disappointed that she had to travel to another country – and pay €15,000 – to have a device that was inserted under the public health system here removed.
“You should not be able to have something in this country put in and then not have anyone here who can remove it.
At the airport on the way back, they pulled me aside because I beeped in security so I gave them the discharge letter from the hospital – they gave me this letter to give to the airport security. They said they couldn’t accept it, so they took me into a room and I had to strip off all my clothes and let them see the catheter up inside me. If I’d had any dignity left at that stage it would have been out the window.
Her flight home with her husband Darren was then delayed.
“When I got in the car at Dublin Airport I just cried, and I cried all the way home. I think it’s disgusting for any woman to have to go through that in this day and age. We surely mean more to people than that.”
The 39-year-old said she does not know if she will ever make a full recovery.
“I’m in a different state of mind now, I feel like I just have to accept what’s happened to me. But what this has done to my family and other people’s families is disgusting. I’m not fighting for myself anymore, this isn’t about me, I want it stopped so that no one else has to go through this.”
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Global? Start at home first.
This government needs to do more to support the largest employer in Ireland, SME’s.
Great country if you are Google etc. God help anyone looking to run their own business tho!
Large players like Google actually distort the market here, welcome as they are.
You have mid level managers thinking 80k is their right, not something that is unheard of in most of Europe. Rent and property prices in Dublin driven crazy by high paying multi-nationals which destroy the competitiveness of the country.
Most of our exports come from 40 US owned companies, over 85% in fact. What a position to place oneself in.
Multi-nationals are lovely to have but they are in terms of economic sustainability and jobs they are a distant second in importance to SME’s.
Double edged sword,
Seanie, multinationals were our one saving grace when the sh!t hit the fan in 2007 so I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss their importance. They also create service industries around them which are equally just as important. And if as you say they represent 85% of our experts what do you propose replaces that? It’s not like we have a tonne of natural resources to tap into.
It is the sheer volume of the Pharma industry that distorts the exports.
We live in hope that America will not need someday to refocus tax at home in a recession or jobs at home for political reasons. What a gamble.
Our trade balance is a complete mirage due to Multi-nationals.
Focusing in on SME’s is much more important than Multinationals, they provide most of this countries jobs and spending.
We’ll never reduce unemployment just using multi-nationals, we’ll never have a sustainable tax base or economy by over relying on them.
There are a lot of sme’s that can be brought up to being large players.
Companies like Kerry Group, Glanbia CRH etc are leading global players in their fields, they are some of our multi-nationals, investing large sums all over globe.
Rental increases have nothing to do with google. It’s to do with the lack of housing supply due to a collapsed construction industry based on FF policy.
Don’t forget the planners J. They are still insisting developers build apartments in the middle of no where despite the obvious demand for 3 and 4 bed houses. I’m amazed this isn’t getting more media attention.
Govt too busy bending over for foreign multinationals and rolling out the red carpet for snakes like Donald Trump to help Irish SMEs. I see they’ve brought in an extra USC level now for self employed people. Shows you where their priorities lie.
Self employed earning over 100k. Hardening throttling enterprise is it?
A self employed person has more right to 100k than a high level manager in someone else’s business.
I haven’t much problem with the higher charge at that level but it is very wrong that it is just targeting the self employed. It should be across the board.
The higher tax rate for the self employed who are on reasonable wages shows that the self employed are actively targeted for bleeding.
C’mere to me, where do I get a job that pays €29 per hour??
Primary teacher!
Be a crappie hooker……
When is the next protest against water charges in Dublin?
NEXT Water charge protest: [NOVEMBER, 1st. DUBLIN]
Would like to see the relationship between average gross pay and net pay between Ireland and rest of EU. We have high gross salaries but I imagine they are so high to make up for all the tax and deductions. Talking Private sector here. Public Sector is another animal completely.
In most of Western Europe the tax take is much higher on average, never mind that property tax and water rates are also higher.
The tax wedge is much higher across Western Europe people, ye might not like that fact but that is still a fact.
That’s simply not true Seanie.
A useful graph to include would be each countries % spend of GDP. Most of the EE states with low cost of labour have less than 40% of GDP spent by governments. This with higher % spend have higher hourly rates. Relationship is striking
To take on them we will have to kick every high productivity business out of Ireland.
That is the key difference, most of them do not have any, at any level.
How is competing with high unemployment, low value businesses with poor national infrastructures a good idea.
Luddite.
That’s not my point at all. But I won’t waste my time or yours educating you
Why are labor costs in Ireland always so distorted?
Fact is the Irish worker has 20 days paid holidays in a year.
In Germany the Worker has 30 days paid annual leave ?
First three days of sick leave is at the employees expense.
In Germany sick pay is covered 100% from day (for a limited period of time)
The books are being seriously cooked here it is a complete lie that the Irish worker is so expensive.
However compare the wages of Lawyers,doctors and the public service teachers and politicians.
Our s are some of the worlds most expensive. The Wage issue is pure profiteer propaganda.
So what if we are still above the EU average, we are cheaper on that scale than most of our competitors. We’ll never beat countries like Spain or Portugal or Cyprus on wages, unless we consider cutting wages by 50% and kicking out the high wage multi-nationals.
We pay professional people, senior managers, doctors etc way too much, in many cases double even what wealthy European countries pay.
Legal fees here are outrageous and it is very wrong and selfish that no Govt. have tackled the Law Society here and its closed shop. It is an extortion on Irish society and deeply damaging to business here.
Do you ever take a break from commenting on here. Find yourself a hobby well ye
Ah yes, it’d be great if we could just not pay all the people that do all the work and watch the money roll in. A capitalists wet dream.
Welcome to Jobridge Ireland…
Yeah great place u can pay your employees as little as possible. Zero hour contracts jobbridge.fcukn assault on the working class
“Is Ireland really ‘the best small country in the world to do business in’?”
Not with that preposition dangling on the end of its sentence it’s not!
I guess I’m just going to have to pay a few per cent extra tax to set up my soon-to-be-highly-lucrative grammar auditing consultancy in a country with some syntactic credibility. Well done Ireland – that’s one more highly skilled job you’ve allowed to slip through your bungling fingers!!!
Only prescriptive grammarians would present such a narrow, limited and mostly historical interpretation of syntax; it belongs back in the 18th century along with Bishop Lowth. Most modern grammarians accept the proposition that language is better analysed in terms of a lexical approach.
Q. Is Ireland…blah blah blah?
A. No
Enda says it is
No
Support Small businesses
Great country if your name is O’Brien
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