A Sociological Exploration into the Experiences of Mesh Injured Women

Abstract

Over the past decade, the UK has experienced several medical scandals where patients have been harmed due to insufficient testing and regulation of medicines and devices, alongside individual, collective, and systemic failures within the NHS. A government inquiry into three medical scandals that disproportionately affected women - Primodos Hormone Pregnancy tests, Sodium Valproate, and Transvaginal Mesh - indicated that gender stereotypes present during the clinical encounter contributed towards the harm inflicted on patients (Department of Health and Social Care, 2020). Despite the obvious sociological implications of this phenomenon, sociological investigation into women's experiences of iatrogenesis is lacking. This thesis explores the lived experience of women injured by transvaginal mesh and, in doing so, addresses this gap in knowledge. Transvaginal mesh devices can cause significant harm, but the suffering of mesh injured women is exacerbated by their treatment by healthcare professionals and systems. This thesis examines how women experience medical harm and identifies three medical processes through which harm is inflicted: a lack of informed consent, a struggle for diagnosis, and a prolonged dependence on healthcare, all of which are underpinned by gender biases. To fully understand the lived experience of mesh injured women, analysis extends beyond the clinical encounter, and examines the impact of gendered iatrogenesis on everyday life and biographies. With a biographically informed approach, this thesis reveals three experiences of mesh injury: biographical flow, biographical restitution, and biographical disruption, each mediated by different experiences of healthcare. By categorising experiences in this way, I demonstrate that when women are subjected to harmful medical practices underpinned by gender biases and discrimination, they not only incur severe iatrogenic injuries, but also devastating disruption to their wider lives. I show that without appropriate and timely healthcare, mesh injury- both to the body and to wider life- is progressive and cumulative. Thus, this thesis demonstrates that medical harm has implications that extend far beyond the body, rather it profoundly and continuously shapes the everyday lives of mesh injured women.

Date of Award	6 Jan 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Wendy Bottero (Supervisor), Helen Holmes (Supervisor) & Petra Nordqvist (Supervisor)