Vaginal mesh implants are described as permanent medical devices. It is unfair that patients injured by vaginal mesh implants are time barred for bringing claims in court for devices which are described as " permanent" and cannot be safely removed from their bodies. Currently the time bars are three years for medical negligence claims and ten years for product liability claims. Due to the delay in making patients aware of the risks associated with the vaginal mesh implants, women have been left in the dark for many years about why they were ill. 

This means that they have been exceptionally disadvantaged by the normal operation of legal frameworks and time bars.  Medical negligence claims are related to suing hospitals and doctors. Many women do not want to take this route, for many reasons, including fear of how they would be treated in future care situations.

However, product liability claims are related to suing the product manufacturers.  It appears unfair that our governments have not sought "polluter pays" approaches to punish mesh manufacturers for this situation, when US State Attorneys who have consumer protection powers have successfully taken similar approaches.  

Recent high profile examples remind that waiting for government compensation can steal the remaining lifetime of those injured by access to justice scandals. 

Protect patients, not big pharma manufacturers. 

What is vaginal mesh?

Any surgical mesh which is intended to support the vagina and one of more of the following organs: the bladder, the rectum, or the urethra. It is always positioned between those organs and the vaginal wall. It may be positioned between the bladder and vaginal wall, and/or between the rectum and vaginal wall and/or between the urethra and the vaginal wall and/or anywhere that comes in contact with the vaginal wall.

This petition seeks a change in the current law to allow women injured by vaginal mesh implants for women's pelvic and urogynaecological conditions to seek financial compensation from big pharma manufacturers, such as Ethicon, part of Johnson & Johnson medical companies.  A range of devices exist - retropubic (aka TVT), transobturator (aka TVT-O/TOT) prolapse meshes (aka POP) and rectopexy and sacrocolpopexy meshes. Mesh has many descriptors, including tape, band, ribbon, hammock. They were mainly fitted for continence problems, often following childbirth years. 

 

Impact of mesh injury

The type of injury related to these medical devices leave women with life-changing and debilitating health situations. Many experience serious injury. particularly in pelvic region (bladder, bowel, pudendal nerve, sexual organs, legs). Research is still ongoing on the source of long-term inflammatory conditions related to foreign body gross cell reaction to polypropylene mesh which may trigger further chronic conditions. 

The impact of the injuries associated with vaginal mesh implantation is that women have difficult with their daily toiletry habits, problems walking, problems sleeping, some are long term and high dosages of painkillers, most have lost financial and emotional security. They are ordinary women who underwent standard operations. They did not think to question the safety of the medical devices. That is the government’s responsibility. They did not question the integrity of their treating medical professionals. They are blameless in trusting the system and its decision making. Those injured have lost their past way of life, their personal relationship, their jobs and their dignity.  Successive governments have failed to implement legislation to compensate the injured. How can the women help themselves, when the legal framework of timelines to lodge legal action works against them?

What is at stake?

Tens of thousands of women have been implanted with these regulated devices since they were adopted into our public healthcare systems in 1998.  It is estimated that at least 10% of patients suffer negative life-changing events related to the use of these devices. Early trials targeted the elderly patient population.  The current impasse is that product liability claims most be lodged within ten years. The clock starts at the date of manufacture of the device:

Examples:

Patients with implants dated 1998 + 10 years = the cut-off was 2008.

Patients with implants dated 2008, the cut-off is 2018.

2018 is also the year in which governments in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland paused the use of vaginal mesh implants, with a ‘high vigilance regime’ exception. Despite three commissioned reviews, the Cumberlege Review (2020), the Britton Review (2023) and the Hughes Review (2024), governments apologize but do no deliver on financial redress.  The publication of lengthy reports is not enough. Hope-mongering official statements have not led to any compensation. Government appears to make no attempt to make the deep-pocketed mesh manufacturers pay for the damage done.

Time to act now!

Time is not on the mesh injured women's side. A fifty-year-old woman implanted in 1998 is seventy-six. A forty-year-old woman is now sixty-six. Litigation is also a slow process.

The mesh injured women continue to fall through the cracks in the system. Their financial future is bleak. They are already moving into old age rapidly. Many are turned down for PIP.  They do not have more years to wait for government redress, and no offer has been made or signalled to date.  

Lift the Limit - Empty the deep pockets

Lifting the 10-year time limit on lodging product liability claims for vaginal mesh implants would at least allow them a new chance to take legal action against the deep pocketed pharma manufacturers. 

Similarly as government is claiming it was unaware of the extent of the mesh implant scandal until the publication of the 2020 Cumberlege Report, it appears only just that some extension on time lines  ought to be given to allow injured women to seek compensation. At the moment governments are sitting on their wallets and not budging. Given the information known today, and successful actions in the USA and Australia, there is hope that a fresh wave of litigation would bring real and impactful results to those most affected - the mesh implant injured. 

About me: 

I am a mesh injured woman who has campaigned for the mesh injured since 2016. I run the Mesh Ireland facebook group for injured woman on the island of Ireland. I have represented at the IMMDS UK Cumberlege Review,  had an active role in the Scotland campaign for mesh removal surgeries abroad, work collaboratively with the Mesh Survivors Ireland group and have represented to MLAs in the Northern Ireland Assembly and at the Oireachtas Joint Health Committee in Dublin. 

My #notafullremoval campaign resulted in many women realising that mesh removal surgeries had left substantial amount of mesh in their bodies. 

Mesh injury is a global issue. It is only with the support of all our mesh injured community that these campaigns will stand or fall.  Thank you for your support.