What has happened is institutionalised, home-grown female genital mutilation. Mary Lodato, 63 from Kettering in Northamptonshire, says that this is what has happened.
“It was a systemic health and care failure and it could have been avoided.”
Mary is referring here to complications caused by surgical mesh. The mesh was implanted to treat post-childbirth pelvic injuries in women. The material eventually disintegrated within their bodies and was sheared into the tissue. This has led to thousands of crippling symptoms, including pain, difficulty moving and sexual dysfunction.
An eight-year Good Health campaign in order to get official recognition of this problem led to the establishment a government inquiry under former Conservative health minister Baroness Julia Cumberlege.

What has happened to us? Home-grown, institutionalised female Genital Mutilation,” says Mary Lodato (63), a mother of three, and a university researcher from Kettering, Northamptonshire
Although the inquiry report was published on July 2020, many of its key recommendations have not been implemented. This leaves thousands of women in pain and prevents them from getting the help that they need.
In April, seven NHS-certified mesh removal clinics were planned to open in London and Cambridge, Manchester, Newcastle (Norway), Nottingham, Sheffield, and Leicester.
These were to be staffed with multidisciplinary teams — with specialist surgeons, physicians, imaging specialists, nurses, pain specialists, physiotherapists, and clinical psychologists — to cover the management of all pelvic mesh complications.
But the affected women claim a shortage of specialists has meant that only two are functioning — at University College London Hospital and Southmead Hospital in Bristol (which was not on the original list).
They also said that it was extremely difficult to get a recommendation to one of these centres. Even if they did, waiting times could be years.
‘To the doctors who originally treated us, these operations weren’t anything major — but to us it was a catastrophically painful loss of work, family life and intimacy,’ says Mary.

Mary is referring here to complications from surgical mesh. It was implanted to treat post-childbirth damage in women’s pelviss. The material eventually disintegrated within their bodies and sheared into the tissue. This has led to thousands of crippling symptoms including pain, difficulty moving, and sexual dysfunction.
“Getting any help has been a terrible, terrible struggle, and it wasn’t just the medical profession that was at fault. It’s also the Government, which has done absolutely nothing.
Mary’s story is familiar to almost 10,000 women who have joined a group called Sling the Mesh (an anti-mesh group) and a number other support organisations.
After the births her son and daughters (now 44, 41 and 35 respectively), she developed minor incontinence. Mary was 47 years old when she was referred to a transvaginal tape (TVT) operation. This is a type of plastic similar to the string bags used for packaging oranges.
TVT is attached to the pelvis bones with staples. It acts as a sling to support the bladder, relieve incontinence and help with urinary problems.
Many women have enjoyed the benefits of the mesh, but in thousands of cases, the plastic dissolved in the patients’ bodies. Baroness Cumberlege found that the mesh had not been properly tested, was not used in a proper way and that surgeons were often not adequately trained.
Mary states that she didn’t know what the mesh was, but was sold the operation as if it were something. The success rate was 95 to 99%. It was great at first, but I was in agonizing pain after five years.
“In April 2017, my daughter wrote me a Daily Mail article on mesh. She asked, “Is that what you had?”‘
“It suddenly dawned to me that I couldn’t participate in anything with my family. I have five grandchildren, but I couldn’t get involved with them. I was constantly tired and experienced terrible grating pains throughout my groin, so it was impossible for me to walk. It was getting to the point where I couldn’t live anymore.
She continues: ‘I saw many GPs and was constantly questioning them if my problems had anything to do the TVT. They kept saying that they weren’t.
“I insist on being referred by a gynaecologist in 2017, after reading the article. At first, he denied that it was the TVT. But when he saw me, he exclaimed, “Oh, my God, I can feel that.”

Sonia Browne, 55 years old, a senior bank executive from Romford East London, said that she lost her husband to myeloma in 2017. He was 52. Her problems began when the mesh had been inserted in 2007, and got worse over time. My youngest daughter thought that I would be the same as her father because I was constantly in bed and in pain so often.
“But he said there wasn’t anything he could do. He was unable to do it and referred me for help. However, when I saw the second doctor in December 2017, his attitude said “Don’t believe everything you see in the papers. What do we want us to do?”
“By then, I had read about the Sling the Mesh Group and wanted to be referred by a specialist urogynaecologist who can surgically remove the mesh once it has broken down and is embedded in soft tissues.
‘But my GP didn’t refer me. We pretty much had a stand up row. She said that the mesh should remain in the body and not be removed, regardless of its purpose. It was a constant battle. I was constantly dismissed, and told that it was depression.
In December 2017, Mary booked a private consultation with Sohier Elneil, a consultant urogynaecological surgeon at University College London Hospital (UCLH), who is leading one of the only functioning mesh clinics in the country — London Complex Mesh Centre.
Mary says, “They were so supportive and sympathetic.” ‘They accepted me as a NHS patient, and promised to write to my GP. I felt so relieved that someone finally listened. I went back to my GP and told the doctor.
“Soon after that, there was a BBC Panorama program about the mesh. When I went back to my GP, she apologized. She stated that she had seen the documentary and understood.
“From that point on, she was very supportive. Finally, I was on the right track. Although I still had a lot of work to do, it was a good start.
Mary has had three complicated operations since then thanks to UCLH’s team to remove as much mesh as possible.
Although she is still in constant pain, she can now walk for up 40 minutes. This is what she considers a breakthrough. She says, “I can live with this amount of pain.” “I couldn’t bear the pain I was in before.
Many patients have similar stories about how the UCLH team saved them.
Sonia Browne, 55 years old, a senior bank executive from Romford East London, said that she lost her husband to myeloma in 2017. He was 52. Her problems began when the mesh had been inserted in 2007, and slowly got worse.
“I was so sick and in pain that I was often in bed, that my youngest daughter thought that I was going to be the same as my father.
‘When I was examined by UCLH, I was asked about my ability to walk with so much mesh.
“I had seen many doctors since getting the mesh in. It was the first time that a doctor listened to me and understood my situation. It was all I could do to not cry.
“I had the mesh removed in July of this year. It had entered my nerves, tendons, and muscles. They had to reconstruct my ovary and I was in the operating room for four hours.
‘I’m not nearly as good as I used to be before the mesh but I’m 100 percent better than before. I have a 3-year-old grandson. I was able to take him to the park after the operation.

June Faircloth is another lucky patient at UCLH. The mesh was placed almost 14 years ago by the mother-of-2 and former civil servant from Clacton in Essex.
Ms Elneil’s personal triumph at the London Complex Mesh Centre is a testament to her surgical skills in repairing injuries sustained by teenage mothers in Africa.
Since 2007 when she saw her first patient who was left paralysed by the mesh, she has been trying raise awareness about the issues.
“For a long period I thought that I was seeing all the women who were being damaged by this material, so I was getting a distorted idea of the problem,” she said. Eventually, it became clear that this was not the case. UCLH began to receive a flood of referrals every month from 30 to 40 patients in 2018.
“While UCLH has been supportive, I became a pariah in some doctors for raising concern over this material. I still am, but if nobody in the medical profession had said that: “Women are telling truth, they’re in pain, we need to support them,” it would have been much harder for them to get the Cumberlege Review and NHS England in.
June Faircloth is another lucky one treated at UCLH. The mesh was installed almost 14 years ago by the mother-of-two, a 50-year old woman from Clacton, Essex.
She was actually a patient representative on NHS ‘Pelvic floor Oversight Group (PFOG). However, she was disillusioned when she learned from the Cumberlege that although it was established in August 2019, it continued the ‘work previously established stakeholder group’ looking at mesh.
June says that the group was there for 12 years. It was given different names so that it didn’t appear as if it had been there for as long as it had. They knew that these problems had been ongoing for years.
“We were told at one the recent working group meetings, that they knew in 2007 one in ten mesh patient would have complications,” she recalls.
‘That’s really high — I would never have had it if I had known that. Studies have shown that about three to four percent of those with problems are women. We estimate that there have been at most 250,000 NHS procedures total since 1990s, so we are estimating at least 25,000 women who have complications.
Despite this, dismay continues to prevail over the inability of Cumberlege recommendations to be implemented.
Baroness Cumberlege said that the report stated that the stories of women who suffered mesh complications from their lives would have a lasting impression on her and her team.
“Although the review was completed more than a decade ago, we still hear from women in desperate circumstances, suffering terrible pain, unable work, unable to look after their children and with no idea of where to turn for help. This is simply a tragedy. It was preventable, even more so.
She continues: “One of our nine major recommendations was for specialist mesh removal centres to be established by the NHS so women could access the care and support that they need. Not only surgical care, but also physiotherapy, pain management, and mental health support. I was encouraged by NHS England’s response to my request to set up eight such centers.
Good Health was informed by a spokesperson from NHS England that: “All seven” [sic]Specialist centres are available, well-staffed and capable of treating patients. The NHS has also introduced training and guidance to primary care teams in order for people to be referred and get the care they need.
Baroness Cumberlege is concerned that the centres are not open. She says she will soon be meeting senior NHS England officials to get an update on progress. It is crucial that these specialist centers are open, fully functional, and accessible to all women who require them.
They must provide consistent high standards of care for all eight. We cannot have mesh removal centers that lack the expertise or understanding, or are poorly resourced or deliver poor outcomes. They won’t be trusted by women.
It is vital that these centres don’t repeat the mistakes made in the past. They must track the outcomes of the removal surgery. Not only the success of the operation, but also the experience of each woman afterward. Effective outcome measurement should be based on the patient’s experiences and outcomes.
Mesh removal is a delicate procedure that surgeons must agree on. It can be complex and there isn’t consensus yet on how to proceed. I don’t know if full or partial mesh removal is best for the woman and what constitutes full.
‘These aspects are confusing and worrying for women — it is incumbent on surgeons and the wider teams in these specialist centres to reach that consensus so that women have a clear understanding of what is involved.’
Kath Sansom (54), a Cambridgeshire resident, started Sling The Mesh after she failed in her attempts to find answers about mesh-related injuries she sustained. She still suffers chronic pain and has no other options. Her group now includes 9,100 members.
‘Some of these women have suffered terrible, life-changing injuries at the hands of surgeons who are now being identified as prospective mesh centre leads and supposed to be the experts to fix them — yet as far as we know, most have not received additional expertise or training,’ she says.
“Last May was promised a meeting with NHS to discuss the needs of women in mesh centres. However, that has never happened.
“Our concern is that surgeons don’t have the micro-surgical knowledge to remove small pieces of plastic. This can cause nerve damage, chronic excruciating pain, and infection.
“We still have a lot to do to help the thousands of women who have been affected by this stuff.”
There have been concerns for decades about Britain’s weak regulatory approval system for surgical devices, including defective artificial hip joints and breast implant failures.
Following one of the Cumberlege recommendations, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency recently began a ten week public consultation to allow people to voice their opinions in the establishment a new regulatory structure to improve the way devices and other devices are assessed before they go on the market. Post-market surveillance will be used to monitor any emerging problems.
While there is currently an “pause” on surgical mesh, it is still being promoted around the world. It seems that the campaigners are still fighting to stop the use of surgical mesh, despite the difficulties in getting the centres running.