Should public pay for implant crisis? Breast implant debacle to cost NHS £150M as 50,000 UK women could need surgery

By FIONA MACRAE and JAMES TOZER

Defective: A plastic surgeon holding e silicone gel breast implants, which were removed from a patient when it ruptured

The taxpayer could be left to pick up a £150million medical bill for removing faulty breast implants.
As many as 50,000 British women, including breast cancer survivors, are caught up in the scandal over implants made in France and filled with gel meant for mattresses.
The true scale of the problem has only just come to light, with figures suggesting the PIP implants have an 8 per cent chance of rupture – eight times higher than claimed over the last fortnight by the UK’s medical safety watchdog.

Review of data: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is 'unhappy' and 'concerned'

Some victims say private clinics are demanding up to £3,000 to remove the implants. The clinics argue that they bought the implants in good faith and would face financial ruin if they had to remove them free of charge.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has ordered an urgent review of the safety of the PIP implants and has promised that if there are concerns the Government will ‘act with whatever remedy required’.
He hopes to publish the review’s findings within days, and industry experts expect him to follow France in advising all women with PIP implants to have them taken out.

Review of data: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is

With each operation costing up to £3,000, the total sum involved could reach £150million.
However MPs and patient groups say it would be ‘outrageous’ for the taxpayer to foot the bill to correct operations which were in the main carried out privately and for cosmetic, rather than medical, reasons.
Leaks of silicone from the implants can cause agonising pain, as well as swelling and lumps in the breast and armpit, some of which can be easily mistaken by women for tumours, causing unnecessary anxiety.
There are also fears that the PIP implants, which were among the cheapest on the market, raise the risk of cancer.

Nightmare: Sarah House has been left unable to sleep and suffering a never-ending ¿nightmare¿ after she found out a faulty implant had ruptured

Mother-of-two Sarah House has been left unable to sleep and suffering a never-ending ‘nightmare’ after she found out a faulty implant had ruptured.
The former social worker and her husband Barry, a retired policeman, have had to remortgage their home in Hereford to cover the costs of treatment.
Mrs House, now 44, had the original implants put in nine years ago because she was unhappy with her 32AA bust.
Last month her left breast began to swell and she was told her PIP implant was to blame.
‘After tests I was told the implant had ruptured, the fluid had leaked and my body fluid had filled up my breast,’ she said.

Terrified: Catherine Kydd, left, paid £4,000 to have her size increased from 32A to 34C in 2004 while Gemma Garrett, right, paid £4,500 for implants at a private clinic in London in 2008

She contacted the clinic last year after a lump appeared in her left breast but was told the warranty had expired. She was later told by a specialist that an implant had ruptured.
Miss Garrett, 30, from Belfast, paid another £11,000 to have both implants removed, but her surgeon told her some of the silicone had fused into her breast, causing lasting complications.
‘I now have huge cavities in my breasts where the implants were and, every six weeks, I have to go to hospital, have a needle inserted into my breasts and the blood which has filled up in the cavities drained,’ she said.
‘It’s painful and unpleasant. I am so angry with myself for having the operation in the first place.
‘But I am also very scared. Am I going to be OK? I don’t know.’

source: dailymail