Thirty years after the Cartwright Enquiry exposed unforgivable crimes against women and their bodies by Herb Green and his followers at Auckland's National Women's Hospital, at least one campaigner against The Unfortunate Experiment is now fighting for victims of surgeons still using mesh as a quick and easy fix.
Lack of a mesh implant register and slack reporting requirements mean we don't know how many cases there are.
Many surgeons using this product, primarily gynaecologists, seem as casual about informed consent as Herb Green during his reign. And the present government under minister Jonathan Coleman drags its heels on calls for at least a register to track victim numbers. The peak body representing these high-earning surgeons has the gall to say it would be "expensive".
One gynaecologist has spoken out. Hanifa Koya, who performs dozens of transvaginal mesh removal surgeries each year at Wellington's Wakefield Hospital, says a registry is long overdue.
However, in the 30 years since the Unfortunate Experiment, women have continued to suffer in many more cases of medical incompetence and/or disregard for their suffering.
It is widely and wrongly assumed that new standards of accountability came into force as a result of Dame Sylvia Cartwright's stinging report to the government of the day. However, a watered-down 2002 law says it's only discretionary for doctors to report fellow practitioners they suspect of incompetence. Doctors can continue to effectively cover up these doctors' transgressions..
I urge women to share their stories of this sort of treatment; medical power structures have flourished in the wake of our silence for too long. (Abridged)
CAROL WEBB
Whanganui
No rebellion
To be vitriolised is not a pleasant experience, but it serves no useful purpose except to encourage me to keep writing.
The term "verbal diarrhoea" would be more accurately applied to the generally accepted history of New Zealand.
Every inquiry into the land wars in Taranaki has concluded that there was no such thing as rebellion by the Taranaki tribes.
But some of my opponents insist on perpetuating the colonial propaganda of the settler government.
Imagine the uproar if a group of recent immigrants formed a government and attacked the present population -- even though the Solicitor General warned them that it was unwarranted and would be illegal.
But they made war on Maori in spite of the warnings. Hence the recent gathering and apologies at Parihaka.
"Scrap the Treaty?" Not yet, people. There are 100 other Parihaka in Taranaki, all waiting to be acknowledged.
And that treaty was signed by equals. Without it your government has not got a leg to stand on.
Take care what you wish for.
POTONGA NEILSON
Castlecliff
Forced fluoride
The Health (Water Fluoridation) Amendment Bill violates every citizen's freedom to choose in matters concerning their own health.
When a government wields the power that mandatory fluoridation would impose, that redefines people as chattels or property of the state.
Minister of Health Jonathan Coleman's announcement that the Government will fund $12 million for councils to add industrial waste fluoride to the country's water supplies rather than commit to working at grassroots level with communities to help vulnerable children is an indictment on our Ministry of Health.
Educate Don't Fluoridate champions a NZ-tailored oral health education programme based on Denmark's Nexo, which begins when a child's first tooth erupts. Denmark has the lowest rate of dental caries in the world (WHO statistics, 2015) and has never fluoridated its water.
We have spoken with politicians from all parties and presented to the Select Committee at Parliament, but what we have said has fallen on deaf ears. It is time our government stopped listening to industry lobbyists and big business and paid attention to Maori, Pasifika and other vulnerable children.
District health boards are failing to identify and follow up children who are at high risk.
Poor oral health is related to poverty and ignorance, not the lack of fluoride in drinking water. No amount of fluoride will help these children, whose consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages can only be addressed through oral health education.
Minister Coleman needs to look beyond the weak science of the RSNZ report largely funded by the Ministry of Health. Their bid to uphold a pro-fluoridation stance demonstrates their willingness to risk the health of our population, never having conducted a single study on the risks of fluoridation of our water supplies. (Abridged)
JUDY CROWE and CYNTHIA MCCONVILLE
Co-conveners, Educate Don't Fluoridate
