Scots victims of botched medical implants hit out over time limit to take legal action

-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Campaigners are fighting for the right to sue medical manufacturers over failed implants.The Raise the Limit group is battling to double the time patients are permitted to sue to 20 years, which would enable more patients get justice f rom the medical product firms.

One campaigner said: “We don’t want to leave anybody behind. Manufacturers need to be brought to account.”

Currently, a firm can be sued for up to 10 years for a failed implant but often it is years later before the product fails in a catastrophic way.

READ MORE:Botched implants firms must pay the price for horrifying pain

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Yet the clock begins ticking on the 10 years from the moment the piece of equipment leaves the factory – even though it could be years before it is even implanted into a patient.

All types of implants are included in the ruling, including products like artifical joints, breast implants, cochlear implants, intraocular lenses, pacemakers and contraceptive devices as well as the controversial mesh implants.

Roseanna Clarkin, 41, has been a long-time campaigner for the scrapping of all mesh products having suffered excruciating pain since they were used to repair a hernia.

Roseanna Clarkin; Surgical Mesh campaigner from Clydebank.
Roseanna Clarkin; Surgical Mesh campaigner from Clydebank.

She is part of a Scottish legal action being taken against several manufacturers. But the case has taken so long to get into court that some of the patients involved can no longer be considered because the 10-year-limit has passed.

While Roseanna is still part of the action, she has thrown her weight behind the UK-wide Raise the Limit campaign.

Only the UK Parliament can make such changes to the law as it is a reserved matter.

Roseanna said: “The law says you can only sue the manufacturer up to 10 years but that is 10 years shelf life, not even 10 years in the body.

“We don’t want to leave anybody behind.

“Manufacturers need to be brought to account.

“If something has to be in your body for life, manufacturers should be accountable for it for life. The law as it exists is failing so many people.”

Jan Faulkner, 52, from Warrington, Cheshire, is the brains behind the campaign.

She was fitted with a contraceptive device called Essure in 2008 and began developing debilitating painful symptoms and overwhelming fatigue soon afterwards. It was 2017 before the device was removed.

She founded the Essure support page to raise awareness of the problems and prevent other women going through the issues she has faced.

But attempts to bring a legal action were slow and because her device had been on a shelf for three years before it was implanted, her case was already time barred.

She said: “A lot of people were angry at the solicitors because they couldn’t act for them but when it was explained to me that they were only following the law, I thought, ‘Well, change the law then’.

“And that’s where the campaign was born.

“It frustrates me people can’t get a voice. You get a warranty with a car so you have a voice to speak up if something goes wrong but if it is something inside your body, you don’t get that voice.

“This affects everything from knees, to hips to heart stents.”

Jan took her own claim to London-based lawyers Pogust Goodhead but because of the law as it exists, she was unsuccessful.

However, she now works as a liason officer for the firm which is backing patients in the Raise the Limit campaign.

The campaign group is asking anyone affected by a failed implant who is time barred to share their story on the Facebook page #RaiseTheLimit ...on medical implants UK.

They are also calling on people to write to their local MPs to garner their support for the campaign. And yesterday the Parliamentary Private Secretary to new Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Glasgow South West MP Zubir Ahmed, said he was willing to meet with campaigners to learn more about their cause.

Ahmed, a transplant and vascular surgeon, said he was unaware of the campaign but said: “I am very happy to look at it and put it across the desk of people in the relevant department of health.”

Case study

Shharon Comrie’s life was ruined by mesh implants but by the time she realised there was a fault, it was already too late to sue the manufacturer.

Now, mum-of-two Sharon, from Tayport in Fife, is pinning her hopes on the Raise the Limit Campaign to finally get compensation for all her suffering.

Sharon was 40 when she suffered urinary incontinence and had a procedure called a colposuspension to correct it, After 10 years, it began to break down causing her incontinence to return, as well as a vaginal prolapse.

Sharon (65) is unable to sue the firm who manufactured the mesh due to a 10-year-time bar on medical equipment.
Sharon (65) is unable to sue the firm who manufactured the mesh due to a 10-year-time bar on medical equipment.

At Perth Royal Infirmary, she was told about a new gold star treatment which was minimally invasive and would allow her to return to work with the RSPCA within a week.

In 2009, she had TVT mesh fitted and it seemed to work apart from a few pains but consultants could not find any cause.

A few years later, she began suffering from urinary tract infections, vaginal pain and pain during sex. It was at its worst in 2015 when she was in bed with her husband, David.

Sharon said: “He felt something cutting into him. I made an appointment with the GP and I got sent to Perth Royal.

“It turned out to be an erosion of this mesh into the vaginal wall.

“I was asked if I wanted a trim back where the consultant would cut the bit protruding in the womb. It was a one-day operation, so I agreed to it.

-Credit:Daily Record
-Credit:Daily Record

“A couple of months later, I had the same symptoms, my husband felt jaggedness.

“Every time I sat down a certain way, I would jump up again because it was like a knife cutting into me. I stupidly agreed to another trim back in 2016. The following year, it happened again.

“Every time I got it done, it got worse.

“From the day it was done again in 2017, I had horrific, and still have, nerve pain down my right leg. It would go out of action. I would stand up and just fall.

“I went back again. I had MRI scans, lung X-rays, CT scans. I was told I might have MS or Motor Neurone Disease but all tests were inconclusive.

“In 2021, I had another partial mesh removal; I was so desperate to ease the pain.”

Sharon is part of a new campaign to Raise the Limit.
Sharon is part of a new campaign to Raise the Limit.

This time the pain eased for just three weeks.

Sharon said: “By this time I had problems walking, I was in constant pain. I was so tired all the time. I thought I was dying.”

Seven months ago, she went to America where expert Dr Dionysios Veronikis removed her mesh in a lengthy operation.

By then, she’d had to give up the job she loved and could no longer have sex.

Sharon, who walks with a stick now, said: “The mesh had become embedded in muscle and nerves yet the hospital had been saying for years that the nerve pain had nothing to do with the mesh.

“I am mesh free but I still have nerve problems. I am hoping with the mesh
being removed now it may right itself but I don’t know.”

Her chances of sueing the mesh manufacturers have long gone unless the 10 year time bar is overturned.

She said: “How can you put a time on people’s health? We are not electrical equipment, we are a human life.”

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