Women still face a medical minefield
Baroness Cumberlege, who chaired the review into vaginal mesh, hormonal pregnancy tests and an epilepsy medicine that harmed unborn babies (Denial of women’s concerns contributed to decades of medical scandals, says inquiry, 8 July), was involved with my campaigning group Radiotherapy Action Group Exposure back in the early 1990s.
After a Guardian article in 1991, it was found that hundreds of women were suffering devastating injuries from breast and pelvic radiation. We had much media exposure and over the years interacted responsibly with the Department of Health, the legal profession, charities and royal colleges, as well as providing advocacy and support to our members.
We became ridiculously enmeshed in issues designed to distract us from achieving our simple aims of proper care, support and attention to our complex needs, never properly addressed to this day.
It is painful to see that our well-trodden pathway is still seemingly littered with the same minefields we had hoped were at least partially detonated or identified by us.
Jan Millington
Southborough, Kent
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