Mesh victims who travelled to US for government funded treatment 'denied NHS care'
28.04.2024 - 04:51
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
Women who travel to the US under a Scottish Government scheme to fix a medical scandal face a postcode lottery of follow up treatment after returning home.
Victims of mesh claim they’re being denied treatment by their health boards - despite the issue being caused in Scotland.
The Sunday Mail asked each of Scotland’s 14 health boards if they would continue to see a patient for issues relating to the plastic-style medical inserts after undergoing surgery in the US or England.
Only nine have so far said they would.
Louise Thompson travelled to the US in August under the scheme but claims her health board, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have refused to treat her further as she had chosen to have the treatment abroad.
The 43-year-old mum-of-two, from Port Glasgow. said: “Mesh has destroyed my whole life.
“They sent me to America because of a mesh they put in on the NHS here which they told me no no-one here in Scotland could remove.
“I knew I’d need reparative surgery on return as under the contract the US surgeon can remove the device but can’t repair the issue of why it was put in the first place.
“But I was told they wouldn’t treat me here as I had chosen to go to America for treatment. I’d opted to leave Scotland and basically I was no longer their problem.”
Louise had mesh inserted in 2010 to resolve bladder and bowel issues following childbirth.
In July 2022 a contract to enable NHS patients to visit Dr Dionysios Veronikis in Missouri to receive transvaginal mesh removal surgery was signed. Louise said it was during her operation that Dr Veronikis discovered her mesh implant had caused irreversible damage.
The former GP surgery worker, said: “To live through the nightmare of mesh, to then be told the doctors