Women's Health Has Always Been Bottom Of Our Priorities
How is a medical procedure just like a flight on a budget airline? In both cases, we’ll sacrifice our comfort and happiness in pursuit of the bigger goal. We’ll end up feeling grateful for all the discomforts along the way, because they got us to where we are now. Yes, it was hellish, but the job’s been done. One major difference, though, is the moment you hit the tarmac, the misery of that budget flight is behind you. The pain of a botched medical treatment can last, however, forever.
That’s what many brave women told The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) review. It details the causes of three major scandals affecting up to thousands of women, whose health and wellbeing was harmed by “dismissive”, “defensive” and “arrogant” healthcare professionals and untested procedures.
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Expectant mothers had taken Primodos, a hormonal pregnancy test which gave newborns deformed limbs and the livers of alcoholics. Epileptics on sodium valproate to allay seizures gave birth to children with developmental disorders. And for mothers with labour-induced problems such as incontinence (which affects 40% of new mums), synthetic polypropylene mesh was inserted into their pelvises. Life-changing problems caused by the treatment include organ damage, chronic pain “like razors in the body” and the very incontinence the treatment was purported to cure.
These women underwent such treatment because they trusted a medical establishment that, in return, refused to trust these women when they said they were in pain. Containing the most powerful, inimitable process of human science within their bodies, these women deferred to others’ navigation. There’s nothing wrong with expert help, the problem is when experts refuse to acknowledge their patient’s expertise. Unless women...
