Warning: Graphic content
Women living on morphine and becoming suicidal from "razor blade" pain are among 30 complaints Sally Walker has collected as part of a fight against surgical mesh harm.
Of those complaints, 20 have been lodged with New Zealand's government-funded healthcare watchdog the Health and Disability Commission (HDC), and the remaining 10 were expected to be sent to the agency within the next six weeks.
Walker, 73, told her story to the Herald in June, describing her insides being so badly damaged by the medical device that her bladder had to be removed and her vagina sewn closed.
Her trauma caused national outrage, with hundreds of people commenting on social media in disgust by how she had been treated and dozens more women contacting the Herald with their stories of being harmed by mesh.
Now, the former Karitane nurse is helping other women who say they too have been left crippled by mesh implanted into their body, allegedly without their informed consent.
"These women need someone to advocate for them so they don't continue to get fobbed off, I am helping them feel heard," Walker said.
She said these women had contacted her from all over the country including Northland, Rotorua, Auckland, Nelson, Greymouth, Taranaki, Dunedin, Hastings, Whanganui, Te Awamutu and Hokitika.
"This shows that scale of the problem, it's not just one surgeon or one hospital. Mesh harm is happening all over the country and it needs to stop," Walker said.
These women had been operated on between 2009 and as recent as last year, she said.
Walker said the common themes she was seeing in these complaints was women not being believed, been made to feel like their illness was "in their head" and often they hadn't given informed consent.
"They are not being listened to about pain, how they are feeling, they are just given medication to the extent of morphine and tramadol and taking it all together in one day," she said.
"These urogynaecological surgeons actually don't know how to remove the mesh so keep fobbing them off by increasing their medication."
Of the 30 women, 23 had been able to get their mesh removed and seven were waiting for removal surgery - but nearly all were left with life-long trauma.
She said some women have almost been driven to suicide, some couldn't cope and enjoy family time and the fear of wetting themselves was constantly with them.
"Some have five pairs of the same clothes so that if they do have an accident they can go and change and no one will notice"
"They were between the age of 35 years old and in their early 70s," she said.
Walker said it was horrific, especially for someone so young and so soon after having her baby to go through what she has done and without any other options put to her.
"I think it's shocking and she's a remarkable young women to speak up for it."
Health and Disability Commissioner Morag McDowell said she wanted to acknowledge Walker's advocacy for people harmed by surgical mesh, and thank her for her support of people submitting complaints.
"To those who have submitted a complaint, I can assure them that their concerns will be carefully considered and treated seriously."
The commissioner said she remained concerned about inconsistency in informed consent and regulatory issues including credentialing and training of surgeons.
"I believe there is a collective responsibility to work together to address these issues, and will continue to closely monitor progress of recommendations made as a result of the restorative justice report. I encourage anyone with concerns about their experience with surgical mesh to contact my office."
Former Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson - now a professor of health law and policy at the University of Auckland - told the Herald in June that he was aware there remained "significant concerns" of women still being harmed by gynaecological surgeons who were not properly trained to select appropriate patients and implant mesh without causing harm.
"My understanding is the issues are ongoing and that's deeply concerning," Paterson said.
A Rotorua nurse says she spent nearly three years being "gaslit" by a surgeon who didn't believe she had been severely harmed by surgical mesh.
Kristen Donnell, now 59, is one of the women who complained about her surgeon to HDC through Walker.
In late 2016, Donnell said she had mesh implanted into her body to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI), a common birth injury.
A year later, she had an accident which, she said, dislodged the mesh. Donnell was referred to a different surgeon to fix it and they recommended she have another piece of mesh inserted into her body.
"I was really worried about this but [they] said mesh was safe and the alternative was a lot more painful and a lot more risky ... I asked if [they] could just remove the dislodged piece of mesh but [they] said [they] couldn't."
Donnell said she remembers waking up from that surgery, in March 2019, in excruciating pain.
"I was really sore and the pain just got worse and worse ... everyone just chose to ignore it. I told [my surgeon] and [they] just said to take pain relief," she said.
In the three years that followed, she said her pain continued to the point she couldn't have sex with her husband or exercise like she used to.
"It's hard to feel happy when you are that sore all the time," she said.
Her medical records, seen by the Herald, showed she had dozens of appointments and phone conversations with her surgeon and GP to try resolve her pain. Each time she was prescribed more pain medication.
"The most frustrating thing was [they] weren't asking why I was in this much pain ... taking that much pain relief isn't good for anyone," she said.
Then her GP examined her pelvis and told her they could feel adhesion, she said.
"When I told [my surgeon] this [they] laughed and said I didn't have adhesion," Donnell said.
That was the moment she said she lost complete trust in her surgeon and sought a second opinion.
"Straightaway [the urologist] identified my injuries and said they could remove the mesh."
Medical notes written by urologist Eva Fong, who helped remove the mesh, said: "Inspection of the pelvis showed significant pelvic fibrosis and scarring, in keeping with the previous pelvic haematoma."
In December last year, Donnell had nearly all of the mesh removed.
She said she was grateful she can have sex with her husband again and was generally in less pain but she had been warned by her new surgeon that she will never have normal bladder function again because the organ had been so damaged by the haematoma.
Donnell was now waiting for surgery to insert a bladder pacemaker which was being funded by ACC under a treatment injury claim.
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