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Fiona Robinson submission of 25 June 2021

PE1865/Q - Suspend all surgical mesh and fixation devices

In 2021 we shouldn’t have to petition to ban all mesh in Scotland. Despite all the assurances, reports, promises and statements in Parliament we find ourselves still trying to get mesh banned. I believe that all mesh can cause unnecessary horrific pain and problems.

In 2003 I had surgery which resulted in complications. I had further surgery in 2006 to address these. Forward on to November 2017 and even more surgery to try and fix the complications arising from the second surgery. It was supposed to be a 4-hour operation but I was in theatre for 12 hours and ended up in the High Dependency Unit. The surgeon came to see me and told me that it was a difficult operation and he used mesh as he felt the wound would break down. I was appalled as mesh was never discussed and I wouldn’t have consented to its use (having been at the CPG on Chronic Pain and heard from the mesh survivors). He told me in air quotes that he used “the good mesh”. I was utterly distraught.

A few days later I was back on the wards and spoke to my urologist (not my surgeon) and told him that I had mesh inserted. He went off to speak to my surgeon and came back to say that I didn’t have mesh and it also wasn’t in my operation notes. My urologist further commented that there is no way they would have used mesh due my severe adhesions and it was contra indicated due to my auto immune disease. My urologist asked my surgeon to come and confirm it and he did, basically making me feel like I had dreamed it up!

2 weeks after my discharge, my whole wound burst open and I went back to the surgeon who said there was nothing he could do and I had to heal from the inside out. I pointed to what I felt was mesh in the wound and I was dismissed as I didn’t have mesh and it would be the surgical stitches I saw and felt. I struggled on for 6 months trying to get back to work with a huge open wound and by May 2018 I had to make the awful decision to leave work and take ill health retiral from my pension.

The pain in my stoma site was awful, I had never felt pain like it and I had neuropathic pain in my kidneys and was used to a certain amount of pain. I kept asking why my stoma was so painful and was told it was just the wound granulating and would go. I knew that I could feel something sharp but my surgeon wasn’t listening. I challenged him and he eventually relented to allowing me a scan. The scan showed that I had mesh and huge scarring, my surgeon very surprised as he didn’t remember using it and it wasn’t in my operation notes, but he did relent and say that using air quote to describe good mesh is something he would do.

I could not live with the pain in my stoma, my life was utterly destroyed. By Christmas 2018 he confirmed that he would put me on his waiting list to have the mesh removed and warned me that it would not be an easy surgery.

January 2020 I went in for my surgery to be told by the staff that I was only in for a refashion of my stoma and they actually intended putting more mesh in and that the surgery would only take an hour. I refused the surgery and the surgeon came and spoke to me and eventually agreed to try and remove the mesh. He was not happy that I wrote on the consent form for no more mesh to be used. The surgery lasted 4 hours and no mesh was removed. They did instead try and unstick my ureter which was completely entangled in mesh.

At no point were any of my concerns taken seriously. I was continually fobbed off and my mesh is still causing horrific pain, yet my surgeon doesn’t recommend any further surgery. I’ve been told that it’s a ‘bloody mess’ in my body and I just need to put up with it.

I can cope with the pain in my kidneys. I’ve had it so long and it’s well managed with Lignocaine infusions, but the pain on my stomach at my stoma is truly horrific, you wouldn’t put a dog through this pain!

Please please ban all forms of mesh. There are surgical techniques that are being lost as more and more surgeons are reliant on mesh. I didn’t have mesh because I needed it, it was used to try and hold the wound together but it didn’t work so as well as having to heal from the inside out I now have this mesh causing horrendous destruction in my body.