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Showing results for tags 'Womens health'.
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Content ArticleDiscussion on issues relating to vaginal mesh implants from 29 Jun 2022.
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Content ArticleComplications of surgical mesh procedures have led to legal cases against manufacturers worldwide and to national inquiries about their safety. The aim of this study from Keltie K et al. was to investigate the rate of adverse events of these procedures for stress urinary incontinence in England over 8 years.
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Content ArticleThis report by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Muslim Women and the Muslim Women's Network UK aimed to investigate the maternity experiences of Muslim women in the UK, particularly from Black, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds. It aimed to better understand the factors that influence the standard of maternity care Muslim women receive, and to determine whether this may be contributing to poorer outcomes for them and their babies. 1,022 women completed surveys and 37 women were interviewed for the research. The study focused on the care given throughout pregnancy in the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal periods. Experiences of sub-standard care were analysed to find out: whether they were associated with the women’s intersecting identities such as ethnicity, religion and class. whether attitudes were due to unconscious bias (for example, negative stereotypes or assumptions) or conscious action (for example, microaggressions). what role (if any) organisational policies and practices played. Particular attention was paid to how near misses occurred as this information could help to save lives of mothers and babies. To show what good practice looks like, positive experiences were also highlighted.
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Content ArticleIn this presentation Paula Goss, the founding member of Rectopexy Mesh Victims and Support, shares her experience of having a mesh implant. She describes the absence of informed consent during the procedure and the pain and complications she experienced following her surgery. This was shared at a Bristol Biomedical Research Centre workshop aimed at improving shared decision making for surgical innovation.
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Content Article
Two years after Baroness Cumberlege shared her damning report, 'First Do No Harm', which highlighted serious failures in response to reports about harmful side effects from medicines and medical devices, too many mesh injured women still continue to be let down by the healthcare system. Women who have been harmed by pelvic mesh surgery have shared a series of appalling accounts of how they have been treated by their doctors while desperately seeking help for their injuries and complications. In this blog, we examine how these comments reveal an underlying misogyny held by many doctors, and a failure to take women’s concerns seriously. -
Content ArticleThe Indian Liver Patient Dataset (ILPD) is used extensively to create algorithms that predict liver disease. Given the existing research describing demographic inequities in liver disease diagnosis and management, these algorithms require scrutiny for potential biases. Isabel Straw and Honghan Wu address this overlooked issue by investigating ILPD models for sex bias. They demonstrated a sex disparity that exists in published ILPD classifiers. In practice, the higher false negative rate for females would manifest as increased rates of missed diagnosis for female patients and a consequent lack of appropriate care. Our study demonstrates that evaluating biases in the initial stages of machine learning can provide insights into inequalities in current clinical practice, reveal pathophysiological differences between the male and females, and can mitigate the digitisation of inequalities into algorithmic systems. An awareness of the potential biases of these systems is essential in preventing the digital exacerbation of healthcare inequalities.
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Surviving in Scrubs campaign
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Staff safety
Sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault are commonplace in the healthcare workforce. Too many healthcare staff have witnessed or been subject to it… the female med student asked to stay late lone working with a senior male doctor, being looked over for opportunities at work, unwelcome touching at conferences, comments on your looks… the list goes on. A 2021 survey from the BMA reported 91% of women doctors had experienced sexism in the last 2 years and 47% felt they had been treated less favourably due to their gender. Over half of the women (56%) said that they had received unwanted verbal comments relating to their gender and 31% said that they had experienced unwanted physical conduct. Despite these statistics these issues remain endemic in healthcare. The Surviving in Scrubs campaign, created by Dr Becky Cox and Dr Chelcie Jewitt, aims to tackle this problem, giving a voice to women and non-binary survivors in healthcare to raise awareness and end sexism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in healthcare. You can share your story through the Submit Your Story page anonymously and the story will be published on the Your Stories page. This will create a narrative of shared experiences that cannot be ignored. -
Content ArticleThis is the transcript of a Westminster Hall debate in the House of Commons on waiting lists for gynaecological services.
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Content ArticleRepresentatives from Mesh Ireland and Mesh Survivors have this week appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee, where questions were raised about access to vital diagnostic machines and treament for women who have had vaginal mesh implants put in. Vaginal mesh devices were used to treat issues in women after childbirth, or in their later years, and while it’s not known how many procedures were carried out, it’s believed there were more than 10,000 on the public system alone. Women have experienced painful complications as a result of the procedure and Founder of the Mesh Survivors Ireland Campaign, Melanie Power, who’s a solicitor from Meelick, says many women are unable to work and can’t afford the cost of ongoing treatment. She believes questions need to be answered on why women affected by a post-natal procedure which can cause chronic pain are being means tested for the medical card. Listen to the full interview on Clare FM below.
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Content Article
Breastfeeding Friend tool from Start for Life
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Maternity
The Breastfeeding Friend, a digital tool from Start for Life, has lots of useful information and advice on breastfeeding. And because it's a digital tool, it's available whenever you need it 24 / 7. All the information provided is NHS-approved and based on questions asked by thousands of new mums. Whether you're experiencing breastfeeding difficulties, you've got sore nipples, or you want to know about vitamins and what you should include in your diet – if it's a breastfeeding related question, the Breastfeeding Friend is ready to help you. -
Content ArticleDespite an increased focus in maternity services on ethnic and racial inequalities resulting in poorer outcomes, the experience of migrant women is often hidden from these data, research and improvement programmes. To understand these inequalities and their impact further, Doctors of the World UK (DOTW UK) analysed data collected through provision of health support to 257 pregnant women accessing their service between 2017 and 2021
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Content ArticleMesh complications are rare and in most cases relatively minor. However, in a small number of cases they can be serious. These include mesh erosion/extrusion (when the mesh pokes through the vaginal wall or cuts through internal tissue), vaginal scarring, fistula formation, painful sex, bladder infection or perforation (piercing), bowel and nerve trauma and pelvic, back and leg pains. Some of these complications may occur years after surgery and can be difficult to treat. Serious complications are rare, given the tens of thousands of women who have had the implants, but can be life-changing for some women. As a result of concerns raised by mesh-affected women, in April 2018 the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Hunt MP, announced a review into the use of vaginal mesh. The review was led by Baroness Julia Cumberlege and recommendations made in the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) “First Do No Harm”. The Government published its response to the IMMDS Review in July 2021.
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Content ArticleThe NHS Confederation has published a new report, 'The unequal impact of COVID-19: investigating the effect on people with certain protected characteristics', which maps existing research into COVID-19 inequalities onto some of these protected characteristics, showing how the pandemic has interacted with them. The report then showcases four case studies of how different health and care systems have put in place interventions to respond to these inequalities when designing their COVID-19 response. It focuses on a number of key areas including the impact of COVID-19 on: BAME communities people with disabilities older and younger people. The report concludes with a series of recommendations for health and care systems across the UK.
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BMJ analysis: Normalising menopause (15 June 2022)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Women's health
Martha Hickey and colleagues argue that social and cultural attitudes contribute to the varied experience of menopause and that medicalisation fuels negative perceptions. -
Content ArticleThis study in Best Practice & Research Clinical Rheumatology aimed to determine the systemic effects of surgical mesh implants. The study looked at patients referred to an autoimmunity clinic between January 2014 and December 2017 and concluded that mesh implants may increase the risk of developing autoimmune diseases by acting as an adjuvant (increasing the body's own immune response).
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Content ArticleThis study in Clinical Epidemiology aimed to investigate the long-term complications associated with surgical mesh devices used to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP). The authors looked at rates of diagnoses of depression, anxiety or self-harm (composite measure) and sexual dysfunction, and rates of prescriptions for antibiotics and opioids in women with and without mesh surgery, with a diagnostic SUI/POP code, registered in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) gold database. The study found that mesh surgery was associated with poor mental and sexual health outcomes, alongside increased opioid and antibiotic use, in women with no history of these outcomes and improved mental health, and lower opioid use, in women with a previous history of these outcomes. The authors highlight the need to carefully consider the risks and benefits of mesh surgery on an individual basis.
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Content ArticleThe use of pelvic mesh was paused in the UK in 2018 after some patients developed complications and severe pain following the treatment. In this report for CNA, a Singapore-based news channel, Kath Sansom, founder of campaign group Sling The Mesh, talks about the severe pain and life-changing side effects she experienced after pelvic mesh surgery. The report highlights the risks associated with mesh removal surgery, the fact that women harmed by mesh have been dismissed and ignored by the healthcare system, and concerns that the number of patients who experience complications from pelvic mesh has been underestimated. It also outlines the need for stronger medical device regulation in the UK, and looks at issues with compensation and redress for patients harmed by mesh.
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Royal College of Midwives: Re:Birth summary report 2022
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Maternity
In every aspect of our lives, language matters – and in health and care settings, it’s even more important. How we communicate with each other can determine the quality and impact of the care given and received, which is why developing a shared language is so important. Pregnancy and birth are extraordinarily personal, and personalising care is central to good outcomes and experience. There has been a great deal of debate in recent years about the language around birth, and the impact it can have. During this project from the Royal College of Midwives, for example, women said terms such as ‘failure to progress’ or ‘lack of maternal effort’ can contribute to feelings of failure and trauma. There has been particular debate around the term ‘normal birth’. Despite being the term used by organisations including the International Confederation of Midwives and the World Health Organization, it has often taken on negative connotations in the UK, and particularly in England. In 2020, the Royal College of Midwives, which counts the majority of midwives practising in the UK among its membership, took the decision to address this, and to try to develop an agreed shared language, working with maternity staff, users of maternity services and others involved in the care and support of pregnant women and families. Over the course of 18 months, the consultation has involved nearly 8,000 people from across all four UK nations. How we use language inevitably evolves over time, but the Re:Birth project will help to embed a shared, respectful way of discussing labour and birth. -
Content ArticleMidwives and other healthcare professionals are an integral part of many bereaved parents’ birth story and can play an important role in caring for parents when their baby dies. In this blog, Clare Worgan, Head of Training and Education at the charity Sands, talks about the importance of bereavement care to parents, and how training helps healthcare professionals to better provide this care. She outlines five principles of bereavement care and talks about why Sands is calling for bereavement care training to be provided to all staff who come into contact with bereaved parents.
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Content ArticleWith waiting lists for gynaecology having grown by 60% since before the pandemic, many women are being left to cope with conditions like endometriosis, fibroids and prolapse on their own while waiting for NHS care. In this article, four women describe how NHS waiting lists and attitudes to gynaecological symptoms have left them living with severe pain and feeling like their health is not being taken seriously.
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Content ArticleIn this letter to the Guardian newspaper, a specialist nurse writes on an NHS service that puts women in control of pain relief, Sara Davies on the torturous pain she endured to have an intrauterine device fitted, and Lee Bennett on why it pays to speak up persistently. Have you experienced pain during a medical procedure? Share your experience along with hundreds of women to one of our community forums: Do women experience poorer medical attention when it comes to pain? Pain during IUD fitting Painful hysteroscopy
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Content ArticleFew things are more devastating than a cancer diagnosis, shares Maria Caulfield, minister for women’s health. She should know – she’s worked on a cancer ward for the best part of twenty five years and supported women through diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Here, she speaks exclusively to Marie Claire UK about her ten year plan and how we can make gynae issues a thing of the past. Not only does she want to prevent the five gynaecological cancers, but she wants to help make sure we diagnose them early, too: we know that the earlier you are diagnosed, the higher your chance of survival.
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Content ArticleAccording to patient safety campaigners, hundreds of women have been forced to endure “barbaric” pain while undergoing hysteroscopy tests after being denied pain relief options and anaesthetists were not available. HSJ recently reported that campaigners have identified at least 240 women who underwent the procedure without being told they were entitled to a general anaesthetic to manage the pain of the invasive test and we have seen similar stories on the hub community forum on the topic. Guidance for doctors says pain relief should always be discussed. Instead, these women were found to be underinformed about their own rights and expected to simply endure what can be an incredibly painful process of internal investigation. Just because some women report only minimal or no discomfort, that does not mean this is a painless procedure; for those who do suffer, the experience can be very traumatic. To say these women did not need and could not be provided with a choice of anaesthetic or other analgesic is a form of medical gaslighting, writes Hannah Fearn in this article for the Independent.
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Content ArticleThe current hospital backlog has had a huge impact on many patients waiting for treatment. But if you are a woman, on a low income or from an ethnic minority background, you are more likely to have a worse experience of waiting for care. Research from Healthwatch has highlighted people were unhappy with the communications they received and the lack of support the NHS gave them to help with things like pain relief or accessing physiotherapy. These concerns were not experienced equally by all, and findings were particularly stark among disabled people, those with long term health conditions, and those on lower incomes. A new poll of 1,000 adults on NHS waiting lists shows that a poorer experience of waiting can be linked to factors such as wealth, disability, level of education, gender or ethnicity.
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Content ArticleKath Sansom’s surgery changed her life forever – and motived her to lobby for its halt.
