Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 2 May 2017.
Can I call for a single statement, a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health, on vaginal mesh implants? The Minister will be aware that during the Easter recess this matter was covered extensively in the UK and Welsh press, after it was announced that 800 women across the UK were suing the NHS, stating that these had caused them pain and suffering. I was contacted by a constituent in north Wales, who asked me to raise this here in the Senedd with the Welsh Government. She told me that in 2004, at Ysbyty Gwynedd, she had a mesh implant and she’s since suffered badly from left hip pain, left thigh pain, pelvic pain and intimate pain, as one of, as she says, several thousand women across the UK who are suffering from these implants. Media coverage in Wales at the time said that, despite the complications reported, the mesh is still available to women in Wales, and that the Welsh Government had confirmed to WalesOnline that treatment was still available on the Welsh NHS, but that enhanced guidelines were in place. For the sake of my constituent, and, no doubt, many other women across Wales affected by these implants, I hope you will agree that this merits a statement. Thank you.