I wish to raise another serious issue concerning women's health. This week Britain's National Health Service, NHS, put a pause on the issuing of the vaginal mesh. This is a very personal subject for women suffering from urinary incontinence and pelvic organ collapse but it is causing major harm to hundreds of women in this country as it is used on a daily basis. I will quickly quote Professor Carl Heneghan, of Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, who states:

Many women have been subjected to great harm because regulatory loopholes allowed mesh devices to be made available in large numbers with no evidence in humans. ... We now know women who received mesh implants have been part of a global experiment that in many cases has gone badly wrong.

Other Deputies and I personally know of women who are bound to wheelchairs or are going around on crutches because of this practice. There is no scanning mechanism for these women in this country. They are paying huge money to get treatment in Britain, where it costs €1,500 for an operation to remove some of the mesh. This is a complete failure and the mesh has not been tested on humans. I call on the Government to do what the NHS has done and put a pause on the use of this mesh as soon as possible.

I met these women with the Minister for Health and he is in no doubt about the pain they are in on a daily basis. What happened in England has moved things forward, as the NHS is suspending use of this device for urinary incontinence. It is extremely important we now do the same. The women have said, as recently as Wednesday this week when I spoke with them, that it is too late for many of them but we may be in a position to prevent further suffering.

With respect, I will have to get the Minister for Health to get back to both Deputies on that.

We are calling on the Government to pause the use of vaginal mesh.