Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 15 June 2021
I, too, congratulate Siobhian Brown and Evelyn Tweed on their first speeches in the chamber. I welcome the opportunity to close the debate for Scottish Labour. It has, indeed, been encouraging to hear contributions from all parties that point to areas in which members can work together and make early progress.
Carol Mochan was right to reference Monica Lennon’s Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill as groundbreaking. The SNP initially opposed the bill, but we welcome all converts. There is also unfinished business for mesh survivors, and I will turn to that later.
Claire Baker talked about the need for specialist menopause services and Martin Whitfield mentioned workplace strategies to support women experiencing menopause. He also spoke powerfully about stigma, as did Emma Roddick.
Equally, there is much to welcome in the minister’s opening speech, and I very much look forward to working with her. However, we need more than just a women’s health plan in the first 100 days of this Government. Women need to see action now.
Between 2015 and 2017, for the first time since modern records began, life expectancy dropped. That was on the SNP’s watch. There is a 10-year gap between the life expectancy of women from the least and most deprived areas. Scottish women have the lowest life expectancy of all the UK countries. We need action on a catch-up plan for breast cancer and cervical cancer screening to clear the backlog and identify patients in need of treatment.
Recent minutes of the national cancer recovery group tell us that it does not know when the 36-month interval for breast cancer screening will be the norm. Can the minister tell us in her closing remarks when that will be? The group also notes that the self-referral process for women over 70 has been and remains paused. Can the minister tell us when that will resume? What about the persistent inequality that exists between poorer households and those in more affluent areas? What about the drop-off in screening rates and the consequent rise in cancer incidence in poorer areas? Those issues also need to be addressed.
Kenny Gibson rightly raised the need for action on endometriosis services and waiting times, and we need action on specialist services for women experiencing menopause. There is a significant agenda here, and I look forward to working with the minister to improve services for women and, ultimately, to improve women’s health.
However, I want to use my remaining time to talk about the Scottish Mesh Survivors campaign. The mesh scandal started when I was previously shadow health spokesperson. I met Elaine Holmes and Olive McIlroy, the founders of the Scottish Mesh Survivors group, more than five years ago. Progress has been glacial, despite the considerable efforts of those formidable women and of colleagues in the chamber, principally Jackson Carlaw, Alex Neil and Neil Findlay. The latter two have of course left the Parliament, so we need to make sure that the focus remains.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of women are suffering because they were injured by the use of mesh implants in their surgery. The extreme pain that many women have suffered was denied by clinicians and by the Scottish Government for far too long. The group has produced a charter of mesh care, which calls for the suspension of the use of mesh until there is a statutory ban, and for a mesh removal fund to pay the cost of mesh removal by a surgeon of the patient’s choosing. That would also cover women who have been forced to pay for removal surgery that was simply not available in Scotland.
The minister will be aware that Dr Veronikis offered to help to remove mesh from Scottish women using a tissue-sparing technique, but it appears that his offer was blocked by the Scottish Government, as was subsequently confirmed by the Government’s own mesh expert. That was bad enough, but there was a further scandal. Women who were operated on by Scottish surgeons were told that their mesh had been completely removed, but that simply was not true—the removal was only partial. We now have a Scottish centre of excellence for mesh removal, but is it removing all the mesh? We do not know. We do not even know whether there is further muscle or tissue damage. Will the minister therefore ensure that the situation is monitored and reported on?
The minister will be aware that women do not want the surgeons who remove the mesh to be the same ones who implanted it in them in the first place. Dr Veronikis has submitted a tender to carry out mesh removal. He did that three months ago, but nothing has been heard since then. The women simply cannot wait any longer. I genuinely hope that the minister agrees with me and agrees to take urgent action, not just for the mesh women but for all women in Scotland.
I again pledge to work with the minister in the interests of women, but there needs to be a greater sense of urgency about the challenges that women face, and the pace of change needs to be faster.
17:22