Continued Petitions

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the third meeting of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in section 6.

We have two agenda items, the first of which is consideration of continued petitions from the previous session of Parliament. We will then consider new petitions. We will be joined by a number of parliamentary colleagues who have an interest in some of the petitions that we will consider. We will consider 10 continued petitions, all of which have been carried forward from the previous session of Parliament.

The first continued petition for consideration today is PE1517, on polypropylene mesh medical devices, which is a petition with which I have had some engagement. It was lodged by Elaine Holmes, who is a constituent of mine—and Olive McIlroy on behalf of the Scottish mesh survivors hear our voice campaign.

The petition calls on the Scottish Government to suspend the use of polypropylene transvaginal mesh procedures; initiate a public inquiry and/or comprehensive independent research to evaluate the safety of mesh devices using all evidence available, including from across the world; introduce mandatory reporting of all adverse incidents by health professionals; set up a Scottish transvaginal mesh implant register with a view to linking it up with national and international registers; introduce fully informed consent with uniformity throughout Scotland’s health boards; and write to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to ask that it reclassify transvaginal mesh devices to heightened alert status to reflect on-going concerns worldwide.

Our meeting papers outline some of the many actions that the committee has taken since the petition was first lodged in April 2014. Those include a report and a chamber debate as well as several evidence sessions. Through those sessions, the committee has heard directly from witnesses, including, among others, two cabinet secretaries for health, chief medical officers of the day, key figures at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Dr Dionysios Veronikis, who is a surgeon specialising in pelvic mesh removal in the United States and—so memorably—the petitioners themselves.

Our papers also highlight the recent introduction by the Scottish Government of the Transvaginal Mesh Removal (Cost Reimbursement) (Scotland) Bill as part of its programme, which was announced yesterday. The bill will allow the Scottish Government to set up a scheme that could reimburse people who have paid private healthcare costs to have their transvaginal mesh implant removed. It could also cover travel costs and hotel accommodation paid for in relation to the surgery.

In their most recent submission, the petitioners state that they are heartened that the Scottish Government’s women’s health plan for 2021 to 2024 highlights the importance of learning from the mesh crisis. However, they also highlight some questions that they have regarding the treatment that women suffering with mesh complications can access.

Would colleagues like to comment?

There is now hope that the progression of the bill can be the final chapter of this horrific trauma. However, there are still a number of outstanding questions.

I would also like to pay tribute to Jackson Carlaw’s work on mesh implants.

Thank you.

I know that many of the women involved might be watching this morning, so I would like to say a huge thank you to them for everything that they have done over seven years—a third of the lifetime of the Parliament—in pursuing this extraordinary health injustice. I also thank our former colleagues Alex Neil and Neil Findlay, and Johann Lamont, who did terrific work as the convener of the Public Petitions Committee in the previous session.

The petition has been one of the most significant ones that the Parliament has progressed. It has had implications and ramifications that have been watched and felt in countries across the world. All of that was down to the original petition, which was led by two women, Elaine Holmes, who is a constituent of mine, and Olive McIlroy, but many other women have been involved. There are one or two questions that we might still ask but, in closing the petition, I would like to take the unprecedented step of inviting all colleagues on the committee to give those women a round of applause, because what they have done has been remarkable. Applause.

Thank you. I think that we have formally closed the petition.