THE DEPARTMENT OF Health is set to advise the HSE on reinstating the use of vaginal mesh implants, pending the results of a review due to published this year, at an unspecified date.
A group of women who have experienced “debilitating” consequences as a result of having procedures using vaginal mesh are calling for it to be permanently banned, and for a full redress scheme for those who have experienced pain, loss of earnings, and bills of tens of thousands in private healthcare.
Mesh Survivors Ireland, a group of just over 600 women, stood outside the Dáil for hours today to highlight the need for redress, and to call for key supports for survivors – such as access to medical cards.
Vaginal mesh devices are used in operations to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse – conditions that women can suffer after childbirth, and during the menopause.
However, some of the women protesting today said that they were not adequately advised on what the device was, its side effects, and the fact that the HSE does not remove them if complications arise.
Many women have also questioned why the procedure was recommended to them in the first place, with one woman insisting that Tena pads were all she needed – and that because of the implant she has experienced “years of constant pain”.
Lillian, 73, said she got involved with the survivor’s group when she first saw the women appear on television to raise awareness of the issue.
She had the mesh procedure when she was 50, but until she saw the protest in a news package, she thought she was “the only woman in the world” experiencing the complications that had had a devastating impact on her life.
“I’m going to be perfectly honest, I feel the device was pushed on me. I went to a menopause clinic when I was 50, and was told I needed this. I knew nothing about it.
“I felt that pressure was put on me to get it, i didn’t get enough information on it, I didn’t know it could cause serious problems, I didn’t know it couldn’t be removed.
“When I woke up after the operation I was in excruciating pain. I couldn’t walk, It was like a hot poker, I couldn’t open my legs.
“It was like being experimented on.
“I take meds every day, to cope with life, I screamed, and roared, and cried, and I demanded that they partially remove it – because it was the most they would do – but I was permanently changed by it,” she said.
Lillian said that she has spent somewhere in the remit of €50,000 on private healthcare in her lifetime.
“I haven’t been reimbursed for any of that money. I worked through that pain my whole life – and no one at work would have known what I was going through. At times I was putting pads in the freezer before wearing them to get through the pain,” she said.
Mesh Survivors Ireland are now calling for a redress scheme to be put in place for women who have been through this.
Vaginal mesh surgeries were paused by then Minister for Health Simon Harris in 2018. Now, five years on, a review with recommendations is due from the National Vaginal Mesh Implant Oversight Group.
This group is made up of patient representatives along with representatives from the HSE Mesh Complications Services in Cork and Dublin, the HPRA, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists among others.
The group will make recommendations on clinical practice guidelines should the temporary ban on the procedure be lifted.
A spokesperson for the Department said: “The Department of Health will review the outcome of the update on recommendations and will in turn advise in relation to reinstating a mesh service.”
The survivor’s group brought a letter to the Dáil yesterday to state their disappointment in the lack of improvements in aftercare services since 2018.
It read: “We were promised a compassionate engagement in lieu of a time consuming and expensive retrospective audit into this huge failure.
“However, this promise has not been served either since the agreement in the Department of Health 2018.
“Our Oireachtas submission suggested many living needs that are necessary to our wellbeing and assisted living needs. Now we have have been left with life-limiting injuries following this procedure, but this hasn’t been recognised
“As an injured group… we are still simply requesting proper aftercare with choice, access and funding so we can rebuild and restore our quality of life.
“We may look in appearance to be okay, but the dangers and the detrimental effects this procedure have forced upon our bodies is nothing but cruel and shameful and is debilitating to our mind, bodies and souls.”
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