Scotland’s biggest health board has told campaigners it will review procedures in a major women’s health scandal that has been exposed by the Sunday Mail.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde experts are to look at how invasive hysteroscopy procedures are carried out following a meeting with a victim.
More than 400 women have come forward to reveal their trauma since we revealed how the medical work – where a long scope is inserted into the womb to detect cancer – is carried out without anaesthetic.
Many have been left with post-traumatic stress symptoms and severe pain and unable to have intimate relationships.
Patient-turned-campaigner May Hooper, 71, of Glasgow, underwent an “agonising” hysteroscopy at Stobhill Hospital last July which left her with post-traumatic stress. She met with Dr Vanessa Mackay, clinical lead obstetrics and gynaecology, at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital for talks on how to improve the service.
May said: “It was a very constructive meeting and I felt that Dr Mackay listened to what we had to say and very much hope that Scotland’s biggest health board will lead the way forward by implementing new guidelines for outpatient hysteroscopy.”
She said Dr Mackay agreed that she would undertake a survey of practitioners to establish how they obtained consent for outpatient hysteroscopy with a view to ensuring that “women are equipped with all of the information they need to make the right choice for them”.
May said: “A key change has to be around informed consent.
“If something is detected during an ultrasound that would then require a hysteroscopy, it is crucial that this is discussed between patient and doctor but not while the patient is lying on a treatment table with their legs up in stirrups.”
Until now, GG&CHB has insisted that “outpatient hysteroscopy is a well-established diagnostic test which is used across the country”, despite many women revealing their lived experience does not match NHS guidance that advises them to expect only mild discomfort.
But asked about the meeting, a spokesman for the NHS board said: “This was a constructive meeting between staff members and a patient, and it would not be appropriate for us to discuss the detail of this publicly.”
New cases who have come forward to reveal their trauma included Jacqueline Young, 55, of East Kilbride, who had the procedure carried out at Glasgow’s Stobhill Hospital in 2017.
She said: “Women should be given a choice in terms of analgesia and warned that, for some women, it can be very painful.”
A survey by the Campaign Against Painful Hysteroscopy (CAPH) found that women have been left with post-traumatic stress symptoms with some feeling unable to have intimate relationships with their partners, while others have self-excluded from vital
CAPH spokeswoman Katharine Tylko, said: “We are very grateful that the Sunday Mail has shone a spotlight on this scandal and helped make women aware that one in three will experience severe pain during outpatient hysteroscopy and that they’re entitled to have womb endoscopy under general anaesthetic, spinal or IV sedation.”
The group believes the issue could become as bad as the vaginal mesh scandal which left women in severe pain and with life-changing side effects.
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