1,000 women suffer mesh complications – MHRA receives just 4 Yellow Card reports
Data failed patient safety miserably in the mesh scandal – with huge black holes of missing or unreliable information. A 2012 report (below) showed 1,000 women were re-admitted to hospital with mesh complications within 30 days of bladder mesh sling surgery.
The figure comes from NHS data – known as Hospital Episode Statistics (HES).
Yet data logged by surgeons claims only 101 women were readmitted in the same timeframe. See page 16 of the report below.
WORSE – the 2014 MHRA Summary of Risks & Benefits of Mesh shows that the MHRA received just FOUR reports of bladder mesh harm in the same timeframe to its Yellow Card system via reports from doctors or surgeons. This is because Yellow Card logging by healthcare professionals is only voluntary – we believe it should be mandatory.
The result is a catastrophic 997 women missing from the MHRA’s official database of mesh harm.
In 2013, the MHRA attended a surgeon conference – a year after the devastating figures were published in an Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology report – and were told there was nothing to suggest vaginal mesh was unsafe (see final screenshot at the bottom of this blog).
The 2012 RCOG report can be read in the pdf above or also in this online link here
