By Deb Gayen, AI-Assisted Reporter

Daily Echo – 24 December 2024

A meeting has been held to discuss financial compensation for women injured by pelvic mesh implants.

Baroness Gillian Merron, the minister for patient safety, met with campaigners from Sling The Mesh to discuss financial redress options for women who have suffered due to the implants.

The meeting is seen as a significant step in recognising the harm caused to thousands of women across the UK.

The implants, used to treat conditions such as pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, have left many women with severe pain, organ damage, autoimmune disease and other life-altering complications.

Despite years of campaigning, these women have received little support.

Sir Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East, said:

"The female mesh implant scandal is an ongoing NHS disaster.

Constituents have been seriously injured, left permanently in pain, and forced to spend thousands of pounds on remedial surgery, with at best only partial success.

They deserve substantial compensation and a serious research effort by the NHS to find new ways of safely removing these dreadfully damaging implants."

Kath Sansom, founder of Sling The Mesh, said:

"The government must act with speed to provide financial redress.

Many women have their PIP applications turned down even though they are severely injured, hundreds have lost relationships, their jobs, their pensions.

Some have had to sell their homes to live with family as they can’t afford mortgage payments anymore."

The meeting focused on potential pathways for redress and highlighted the urgency of the issue, with many women struggling to afford ongoing medical treatment.

The meeting concluded with a commitment to further discussions and collaboration between the government and campaign groups to explore viable financial redress models.

In a recent Westminster debate about pelvic mesh held on Thursday, December 5, 2024, the parliamentary under secretary of state for health and social care, MP Andrew Gwynne, committed to moving financial redress forward at pace.

He said:

"The previous government were too slow on that (redress).

We are working at pace and we remain focused on making meaningful progress."