Canadian Coverage of Mesh Complications Continues

Chrissy Brajcic

June 28, 2016, Mesh Medical Device News Desk~ Canadian Television news recently did a report on Canadian women living with the aftereffects of painful pelvic mesh.

The video features Chrissy Brajcic, 40, of Windsor Ontario who has been hospitalized with repeated infections, nausea, vomit and pain even though her removal of pelvic mesh was more than one year ago. Brajcic has pelvic mesh implanted to treat incontinence following the birth of her two children.

"It feels like I'm dying from the inside and I've lost all sense of normalcy in my life," she says. Brajcic has been hospitalized twice monthly for infections and each one is more severe. She says she's becoming resistant to antibiotics treatments and Brajcic says her future is uncertain.

Diane Fichter

What's worse is that her infections don't appear to be responding to antibiotics. She says her goal is to take all mesh implants off the market.

Diane Fichter of British Columbia says doctors have also run out of antibiotics to treat her repeated infections. She was implanted to treat prolapse and incontinence seven years ago and has undergone one revision. Intervenous antibiotics have caused anaphylactic shock, nausea and vomiting.

Avis Favaro- CTV News

Avis Favaro of CTV News has been one of the few reporters who has done repeated stories on the mesh controversy. See a 2013 story here and see the latest story here.

After a series of reports in 2012 she told Mesh News Desk

“This was one of the most troubling stories producer Elizabeth St. Philip and I worked on this year.

The story began as a small piece about two women in Ontario planning to sue the makers of a mesh used to treat their incontinence. They claimed the devices had left them in pain and the implants could not be removed.

We were unprepared for the flood of phone calls and emails from women with similar implants and even more horrific stories of suffering. Some left us in tears.

There are now an estimated 600 women in Canada who are seeking to be part of various lawsuits against transvaginal mesh products. We’ll likely hear more on this story in 2013.”

Paul Miller

Canadian Lawsuits

Canadian lawyer, Paul Miller of Will Davidson law firm, has partnered with U.S firms to settle Canadian cases. He has obtained $2.3 million for 20 Canadian clients and is settling both AMS and CR Bard cases.

Miller tells Lawyers & Settlements that the Canadian government is now approving claims for women to have mesh removal surgeries in the U.S., something that wasn't done four years ago. See the background story on Mesh News Desk.

Siskinds LLP, a law firm in Toronto, is also taking transvaginal mesh cases.

In February 2010, Health Canada issued a safety warning about polypropylene pelvic mesh.

“Reported complications associated with the use of transvaginally-placed mesh for the treatment of SUI and POP include erosion (vaginal, urethral), pain including dyspareunia, infection as well as perforations and other injuries to adjacent organs including the bowel, bladder and blood vessels. Risk factors associated with these complications are not completely understood but may relate to both patient-specific factors such as age, overall health status, estrogen status and a history of previous surgery in the area as well as procedure-specific factors such as surgical technique and route of mesh placement. Required treatment for these adverse events varies depending on the complication but can involve surgical intervention including complete mesh removal.”