Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 November 2021
I am honoured to be contributing to the debate. It is important that the women who were forced to seek private arrangements to remove transvaginal mesh are reimbursed for the costs incurred, and that the scheme moves forward as soon as possible.
I thank those who stepped forward in an act of courage and provided evidence about complications with mesh and the arrangements that they made to have it removed. Taking such an act could not have been an easy thing to do, but those people’s strength and conviction have led to this important issue being debated in Parliament today. I am grateful to follow on from the excellent and heartfelt speeches that we have heard from members of all parties.
The bill before us does far more than just reimburse women who have suffered from this procedure. It corrects a wrong, particularly for those women whose painful side-effects and complications were not taken seriously. Concerns about the severe and painful complications arising from the use of mesh have been reported since the mid-2000s. Just today, a survivor told STV News:
“It feels like you’re getting sliced and I would sooner go through childbirth again with no gas and air and no drugs. The pain is chronic, it’s there all the time and you can’t switch off, it exhausts me. Some days I don’t get out of bed. I’ve got to use walking sticks and I have a chair, and when I get up I’m off balance.”
Although those words might make many of us uncomfortable, the simple fact of the matter is that those women went through years of pain with no support, and we must not forget them.
I am happy that the specialist service has been in operation and has established a multidisciplinary team of skilled professionals, and I look forward to reading the service review next month. I fully support the bill and the objectives that underpin it, which seek to ensure fairness and consistency of treatment for all individuals in relation to the mesh removal service in Scotland and the following scheme for reimbursement. However, there certainly must be more clarity in the bill to ensure that its objectives are met, beginning with residency criteria and timescales.
On residency, the bill currently excludes those who had their mesh fitted in Scotland and later had it removed while residing in another country. I welcome the cabinet secretary agreeing to lodge an appropriate amendment at stage 2 on the residency criteria, because those people deserve to be reimbursed. At the end of the day, they suffered, were ignored and had to take matters into their own hands. It is the Scottish Government’s responsibility to ensure that they are compensated.
In relation to timescales, at stage 2, the bill must address the issue of people who are currently awaiting, or are in the middle of organising, private treatment. It is our duty to ensure that we begin to build back, and not break, the trust between those individuals and the NHS.
Across the chamber, there is broad support for the bill, as there should be. However, that does not mean that we cannot discuss concerns about the detail of the scheme. I fully support the bill and its objectives, and I welcome the cabinet secretary’s comments about considering adjusting the cut-off date and lodging appropriate amendments to the residency criteria at stage 2.
It took a decade for the women to be recognised and believed, and we must not wait years to deliver the support and pain relief that they desperately need. Therefore, we look forward to working on a cross-party basis to ensure a timely and smooth delivery.
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