Labour has called for an immediate halt to the use of vaginal mesh implants and urged the government to launch an independent inquiry into the “ongoing public health scandal” surrounding the treatment of women for urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse.
Sharon Hodgson, the shadow public health minister, said the government must stop allowing the use of mesh implants before a debate in parliament about their safety, after reports that some women have suffered debilitating complications including perforated organs and chronic pain.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) is due to publish updated guidance for the use of mesh implants in January, after NHS England said in a report in July that the treatment for urinary incontinence and prolapse “is a safe option for women”.
The implants have been widely used as a simple, less invasive alternative to traditional surgical approaches for treating urinary incontinence and prolapse, conditions that can commonly occur after childbirth. For the majority of women the operation is successful.
However, concerns are mounting over the severe complications suffered by large numbers of patients, including chronic pain, mesh cutting through tissue into the vagina and being left unable to walk or have sex. Johnson & Johnson, whose subsidiary Ethicon produces one of the most widely used mesh products, is fighting a major class action in Australia. The Guardian revealed in August that thousands of women have undergone surgery to have vaginal mesh implants removed during the past decade, suggesting that about one in 15 women fitted with the most common type of mesh support later require surgery to have it extracted due to complications.
However, since then further evidence has emerged about apparently high rates of complications, and the issue is gaining political momentum. The Guardian revealed in August that thousands of women have undergone surgery to have vaginal mesh implants removed during the past decade, suggesting that about one in 15 women fitted with the most common type of mesh support later require surgery to have it extracted due to complications.
Hodgson said the issue had become a “public health scandal” as mesh implants have left some women in permanent pain, unable to walk and unable to work.
“This is an ongoing public health scandal and the government need to do much more to support those affected,” she said. “Mesh implants should be taken off the market now until we know more about the threat they pose to women’s safety.
“The government have failed to answer big questions about the extent of this public health scandal, including how many women have been affected and why a product with such terrible risks was allowed into the market in the first place.
“Labour is calling for a full inquiry to uncover the extent of the harm done by mesh implants so we can be sure that this never happens again.”
However, some leading gynaecologists have warned that a ban would risk depriving women of the option of a treatment that, for incontinence at least, has been shown to be effective.
The debate in Westminster Hall has been called by the Labour MP Emma Hardy and the issue has also been repeatedly raised by Owen Smith, a shadow cabinet minister, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on surgical mesh implants.
Hardy said her email inbox has been filling up with people telling her their horrific stories after having mesh implanted.
“I was first alerted to the issue of mesh complications after a constituent contacted me who had been suffering in silence for years. I hope that the government will take action and heed Labour’s call for a public inquiry into the use of mesh,” she said.
Smith also said mesh injury was “one of the worst medical issues” he had come across as an MP.
“Since working with Sling the Mesh campaign, I have been contacted by
countless women from right across the UK who have shared their heartbreaking
stories of their suffering following mesh surgery. The government must immediately review all mesh surgery and suspend the use of mesh until more is known about its risks,” he said.
Kath Sansom, a campaigner at Sling The Mesh, said: “People are waking up to the global scandal that is surgical mesh implants and at last it is on the political agenda at Westminster.”
Last week, the health minister Jackie Doyle-Price told MPs she was aware women had suffered complications, but added that it was “equally the case that many women also experience considerable relief from symptoms”. Doyle-Price said: “I think it’s very important that the work that Nice are doing should be allowed to be undertaken so that we can actually make a very clear view of this.”
Sohier Elneil, a consultant urogynaecological surgeon at University College Hospital, London, is calling for the use of mesh procedures for incontinence and prolapse to be stopped for two years. “The time has come for us to truly revisit everything we know about both these clinical states,” she said. “Clearly, the knowledge we have had to date has been limited both in scope and relevance. A change needs to happen now.”
