SKY NEWS: Pressure is mounting on the government to help victims of Primodos, the epilepsy drug sodium valproate and vaginal mesh.
An Independent Patients’ Commissioner is set to be appointed to act as champion for people who have been harmed by medicines or medical devices.
Baroness Cumberlege, who recommended the new role in a landmark report earlier this year, announced that the government had budged on the issue after initial resistance.
She welcomed the move saying: “Had there been a patient safety commissioner before now, much of the suffering we have witnessed could have been avoided.
But she added “the risk still remains” and further urgent action is needed to protect patients from potentially harmful drugs.
At an online meeting of parliamentarians, the baroness described the testimony of a victim of the medical device vaginal mesh, which has left some patients in chronic pain.
The woman had told her review team: “This device took everything from me. My health, my life, my job, my dignity, my marriage, my freedom.”
Reflecting on this the baroness added: “The scale of suffering we witnessed means nothing short of profound change is necessary. Not necessary in a couple or three years, but necessary now.”
Creating a Patients Commissioner would be the second of nine recommendations that the government has acted on from the hard-hitting First Do No Harm report published by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) Review in July, which was chaired by Baroness Cumberlege.
The government’s first act was to apologise for the damage done to patients over many years by products that could have been better regulated.
The baroness is also turning pressure on the government to offer redress to victims of the hormone pregnancy test drug Primodos, the epilepsy drug sodium valproate and vaginal mesh. Campaigners say these products have had life-changing effects.
It’s been 53 years.we were told just forget about it.after losing our daughter catherine.she died two hours after a caesarian operation.she had no trachea.and no back passage.xx
Our son Colin died aged 5 weeks. His duodenum was undeveloped and removed at 18 hours. His left radius was missed and his hand was on the side of his arm. He had a missing kidney and a misshapen kidney. The adrenals were abnormal. His pancreas was wrapped around part of the intestine. He had bilateral septal defects and other abnormalities of his heart.
His post mortem report revealed multiple skeletal abnormalities to his limbs and his hands and feet. His ribs and the chest were connected with tissue bands only.
He suffered numerous operations and invasive investigations.
I thank God that Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital keep all notes because every other NHS department had stripped all notes including maternity notes and my GP notes. We need justice for Colin
I still see him lying there
Tubes everywhere, eyes closed, machines beeping, unshaven.
Every morning when I open my eyes and every night when I close them.
That’s what I see.
I did it to him
I put it him there
I sent him to that horrible state
That comatose state
Where nothing to him mattered – he was just sleeping.
I did it along with professional people I trusted to help me
But I was poisoning him slowly
Sending lethal toxins to his brain before he was even born
Killing him before he even came into the world
People say I didn’t do it.
BUT. STOP. THINK.
My son had Foetal Valproate Spectrum Disorder on his death certificate I took that drug I poisoned him because a doctor told me that MHRA told him that SANOFI told them Valproate was safe.
So, because of them three I killed my son
I carry that guilt, I always will
Some days it’s heavy
Other days not so heavy
But my guilt will always be with me .