N.S. man seeks answers in implanted mesh recall

A Nova Scotia man is frustrated no one can tell him for certain whether a device implanted in his body is part of a medical recall.

Allan Cardinal, of Lantz, had plastic mesh sewn into his abdomen in 2005 to repair a hernia.

"You get a weakness in the abdominal wall and sometimes they just sew it up or in other cases they use a mesh product to reinforce it to prevent the hernia from reoccurring," Cardinal said Tuesday.

Cardinal became concerned this winter when he saw a large recall for certain mesh products.

He said he wondered if the recall included the plastic inside his body and if it was somehow connected to chronic pain he has experienced in his abdomen since his surgery.

Cardinal contacted the Colchester East Hants Health Authority and the provincial Department of Health and Wellness, thinking his medical records would reveal if he was affected by the recall.

No one could tell him for certain.

"The only thing that was recorded at the time is that they used a plastic part in me but no information about the batch number, the brand, the manufacturer or anything like that was ever recorded," Cardinal told CBC News.

The Colchester Regional Hospital, where Cardinal had his operation in 2005, said it kept records of what was put in people's bodies but how the information was recorded may have changed.

"As health care changes, we learn what's important yesterday may not be as important today," said Dr. Manoj Vohra, the vice-president of medicine at Colchester East Hants Health Authority.

"What's important today may be even more important tomorrow."

Vohra said even if the information is not available in a patient's record, there are other places officials can search, such as hospital inventories and manufacturers.

"Most of the time we should be able to give you a specific answer," he said.

"At the end of the day, if we've tried every single avenue to answer a question and we can't, we just can't. But that's unlikely."

Cardinal is still waiting to see if the hospital is able to come up with his information through other means.

In the meantime, he's wondering how many other people have been affected by the same problem.

"I've got the proof that it wasn't recorded on my charts. Is it the same thing for other people who've had surgery at the Truro hospital?" he said.

"Does it cover other medical devices as well?"