Prime minister asked to take action after Ministry fails to address the surgical mesh issue

The support group for New Zealanders injured by surgical mesh is calling on prime minister Jacinda Ardern to honour election promises to take urgent action so that people suffering from mesh complications get the help they need.
 
Mesh Down Under spokesperson Charlotte Korte says the majority of recommendations made by a Health Select Committee in 2016 on the issue are yet to be implemented.
 
“The stonewalling and backtracking on promises by the Ministry of Health has left us extremely frustrated” Korte said.
 
At a meeting in early March about government progress on implementation of the Health Select Committee recommendations, MOH Director of Protection, Regulation and Assurance Dr Stewart Jessamine was unable show any tangible proof that any progress had been made, beyond an updated Medsafe reporting document.
 
Mesh Down Under last week wrote to the Prime Minister asking for her to step in and to investigate why so little has been done to address the issues and to ensure that progress is made.
 
Now that Labour is in power, it has the opportunity to address its earlier commitments and address the lack of action by the previous government. In a press release in February 2016 the Labour party stated that “this is the most widespread crisis involving surgical devices in health and the Ministry of Health has adopted a hand’s off approach….”
 
Patricia Sullivan, one of three co-founders of the support organisation said accountability is needed for the lack of progress on such a serious issue.”  We strongly related to Winston Churchill’s quote “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen”.
 
Sullivan said the Prime Minister wanted to “push for progress” on International Women’s Day.
“The question is will she step up when it counts and push for progress on this awful mesh disaster. We want her to do what is right and make a stand and do something.”
 
While little has happened to address the problem, ACC statistics (released last Friday 23 March 2018) show yet another jump in the number of mesh-related treatment injury claims.
 
There have been another 133 new surgical mesh claims that have had a decision made regarding surgical mesh injuries within the short eight months since the ACC analysis completed at the end of June of last year.  That is a whopping 16 new claims per month but, does not include all claims in the pipeline.
 
That is a total of 943 people that have had their claim dealt with since July 2005.
 
“The trend keeps going upwards rather than downwards as we’d hoped, even though the number of mesh devices used in surgery has declined” Korte said. “Some patients experience a delay in the onset of mesh complications after implantation and this is extremely worrying for both patients and surgeons. Preventative steps for the future need to be put in place to ensure patient safety.”
 
“In addition to the number of claims, we’re concerned about the increase in the number of claims being declined for cover by ACC.  It doesn’t leave much hope for patients suffering with mesh complications”, she added.
 
While waiting for a response from the Prime Minister, Mesh Down Under will today deliver a poster of relevant political quotes to all MPs which asks each of them to “Let’s do this – fix the surgical mesh mess”.