I WAS pleased to see The National include a short write-up on the on the mesh scandal (Mesh surgeon tells of ‘war of attrition’, October 23) following the recent public petitions committee meeting.
After viewing the video conference where US-based specialist Dr Dionysios Veronikis was providing information to MSPs I was spitting feathers on behalf of all the mesh-damaged women in Scotland. It grieves me to be fully aware of the continued pain and suffering these women must endure, and I believe it could all have been avoided.
Now, mistakes get made within our wonderful NHS and we will accept this, especially when our surgeons are honest and transparent. However, we cannot and must not accept negligence and unethical standards from our NHS surgeons and consultants.
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We cannot have surgeons telling women they have had a total removal of mesh when in fact they have had a partial removal, leaving mesh in situ. We cannot have notes of patients’ interviews rewritten. This is unethical and a matter for governing bodies. Especially against a backdrop where the Scottish Government in 2014, with Alex Neil as health and wellbeing minister at the time, warned against further use of mesh until it was proven safe.
This was not enough to deter some surgeons, who continued to use mesh. We do not need surgeons who do not listen either to government advice or patients with real complaints in our NHS. The least we can expect is total transparency with detailed surgical notes, preferably with photos, to pass on this information to the women should they need the procedure reversed. I am not convinced that these basic standards in the case of the mesh-injured women in Scotland have been met.
The astonishing part of this awful debacle for me is that fact that Dr Veronikis made an unselfish offer to come to Scotland to help restore some quality of life for these women and also to share his methods with Scottish surgeons. He had devised several alternative procedures for each different type of mesh implant to minimise damage when removing mesh, unlike the Scottish surgeons who seem to have only one way of removing it which necessarily means that they will seldom remove all of it and they will dig into muscle and tendons which might cause even more damage.
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Some Scottish mesh survivors have already benefitted from removal by Dr Veronikis by travelling to Missouri for an operation which they funded themselves. Why would Scottish surgeons not be prepared to work with another specialist in the same discipline who offers an alternative proven methodology? It smacks of delicate egos to me and personally I expect our NHS to employ people who want to develop their experience and knowledge base.
Many of the mesh-injured women who were hopeful when it seemed the Scottish Government was pulling out all stops to get Dr Veronikis to Scotland are now deeply disappointed. They are pointing the finger of blame at the First Minister and the previous Chief Medical Officer, Catherine Calderwood, and that is where the perceived “war of attrition” comes in. It has all been a terrible bourach, each blaming the other, but it is the mesh survivors who must live every day with unbearable pain and misery, and sometimes suicide seems the only option.
So where does that leave us today? Dr Veronikis has been well and truly pissed off and he will not be coming back to Scotland given the insults he has had to endure from Government representatives and the Scottish surgical team. Who can blame him? I said I was astonished at the Scottish surgeons not embracing the prospect of working with someone with a different methodology, but There is another awful twist in this painful saga. The Scottish Government has set up a centre of excellence in its commitment to help these mesh-injured women and try to put right the damage. You might say this is a good thing, surely? Unfortunately, the people who will be running it will be the surgeons and medical teams who have been involved in the mesh implants. The women affected by mesh implants gone wrong have no trust in these people and cannot bear the prospect of being in the same building as them.
In principle, the centre of excellence seemed like a good idea but it is another layer of agony heaped on mesh survivors. The only redeeming action that the Scottish Government can take now is to pay for these women to travel to Dr Veronikis in Missouri for the full removal of mesh, as called for by Neil Findlay MSP and Jackson Carlaw MSP. The funds should be diverted from any centre of excellence where professionals cannot embrace alternative learning.
Patricia Logan
Dalkeith
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