£1m payout after avoidable mesh surgery led to complications

Yvette Greenway-Mansfield suffered severe complications when a mesh was implanted following a hysterectomy and said the risks were never explained

A woman who suffered severe complications after avoidable vaginal mesh surgery has received £1m.

Yvette Greenway-Mansfield had the mesh implanted following a hysterectomy at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire [UHCW] in 2009.

Solicitors said the mesh surgery was "premature" and "unnecessary" and her consent form altered to include additional risks after she signed it.

A UHCW spokesperson said it had offered its "sincerest apologies".

The money is believed to be the first seven-figure vaginal mesh-related settlement, the solicitors said.

The hospital recognised her life had been affected by the procedure and hoped the settlement would enable her "to meet ongoing care needs and provide security."

Vaginal mesh procedures to treat urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse were paused in England in 2019, and specialist centres created last year, the hospital added.

The mesh was inserted to help deal with a uterine prolapse and incontinence

Mrs Greenway-Mansfield, 59, from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, had the mesh inserted after being diagnosed with a uterine prolapse.

Two years later her incontinence returned and in 2017 she began to suffer pain and bleeding after the mesh started to erode into her vaginal wall.

"I had no idea such complications could happen," she said. "It felt like I had been hit between the legs with a lump of concrete."

She said it was only when she compared a consent form provided by the hospital with her original copy, she found they did not match and the former been altered after she signed it.

Mrs Greenway-Mansfield's representatives, Lime Solicitors, said the hospital's version "included a cystoscopy and extra risks", including "failure, tape erosion, pain, overactive bladder and deep vein thrombosis".

Clinical negligence partner Neil Clayton said the hospital went to surgery prematurely before exhausting all behavioural and medical options.

In February 2020, the mesh was fully removed following a private referral to another hospital, however Mrs Greenway-Mansfield continues to suffer with incontinence and chronic pain, and will require life-long incontinence aids and support.

She told BBC Midlands Today she felt "vindicated" but was "angry" she had not needed the operation, adding the money would only help with the cost of her future care needs.

"But in respect to everything else, how I feel, how the suffering continues, that's not going to change, I know that's not going to change," she added.

"I just have to make the best of it, like thousands of women like me."

UHCW said in a statement: "We have directly offered our sincerest apologies to Mrs Greenway-Mansfield and recognise how her life has been affected by this procedure in 2009."