Chamber and committees

Martin O'Neill submission of 26 January 2022

PE1865/AAAA - Suspend all surgical mesh and fixation devices

I would like to submit to the committee based on the evidence seen within the Shouldice report.

Being a male harmed by a plastic mesh device I would have loved to have known about this report from the Shouldice centre.

This would have meant that I would not have cost the NHS hundreds of thousands of pounds on one year of health care out of the seven years I have had thus far.

And my healthcare is still continuing with that cost. As even though my mesh has been removed, the permanent damage that was implanted with it unfortunately stays.

Factually there has never been anyone registered as disabled due to a faulty native repair technique.

It just fails.

Factually why would you still be offering procedures that have a high potential to cause that to someone?

This report states that the post-op complications from mesh cost more in the long run than the use of natural repair.

I am a patient who can attest truth to that. I am a patient whom has had to endure orchidectomy due to the failure of mesh.

I am a patient who has had this mesh removed and I’m still suffering the ill effects of that mesh.

Anyone reading this report would see just how flawed surgical mesh is. If the Scottish Government cannot see that the use of mesh must be immediately halted and the truth told of this device then, in my opinion, you are utterly failing in your duty of care.

For you are potentially creating more men who will have orchidectomy in the future which happens on your watch whilst you say it’s safe and effective to use surgical mesh for elective procedures on five men what is what your base report was based on.

If nothing is done about this then the contempt and disgust, that must bare heavy on your neck Just as heavy as it bares down upon our body.

This report is showing why natural tissue is superior as the first and foremost route taken.

For if natural tissue repair fails, at least it will not result in the orchidectomy of men. Pain in the testicles. Nor indeed similar if it was a woman. This report is substantiated by the wealth of knowledge of over 75 years. To ignore this knowledge would be foolhardy and utterly stupid of any person, never mind government or scientist. This tried and tested knowledge has been utterly disregarded.

Over the last 40 years mesh has been used, it has caused a divide within the medical community, also within the patient community as clearly we would not be having this discussion if mesh was 100% safe the way it’s being propertied to be. 

Just because the medical community doesn’t know how mesh reacts within the human body doesn’t make them stupid, it makes them blind because when we tell them what goes wrong standing in front of them as damaged as we are caused directly by mesh, they cannot see the damage.

The scars upon our bodies and the pain we feel is very real.

Just because  the medical community doesn’t feel what we feel, go through what we go through and live as we live, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. 

We are telling you how we feel to stop further harm, not because it’s all In our heads.

We raise our voices because it’s the truth that needs to be heard, not because we are making a story of fiction up so we can gain 5 minutes of fame.

We raise our voices because it is the truth.

To be ignored and gaslighted when in-fact we are the ones who are actively learning and are actively wanting to work with surgeons Drs and groups to make things better as a whole is wrong.

We wouldn’t be saying and doing the things we saying and doing if it wasn’t real.