The medical law team at Wake Smith & Tofields are pursuing actions on behalf of women who have become pregnant after they were advised to change to use the contraceptive implant Implanon.
The full extent of the problem has come to light from recent press reports which show that nearly 600 women have had unwanted pregnancies despite believing changing to Implanon would stop them conceiving for up to three years. Implanon is a matchstick-sized tube filled with synthetic hormone fitted into the upper arm of women by health professionals and is used by thousands of women in the UK.
In the vast majority of cases the device works effectively but medical regulators are concerned that, despite no contraceptive device being 100 per cent effective, the high incidence of complaints concerning Implanon has led to Health Regulators putting pressure on manufacturers MSD.
The team at Wake Smith & Tofields have advised in cases where pregnancy resulted after women had believed that the device had been fitted correctly. However, we have identified that the health professional administering the device had not realized that the preloaded applicator had not released the implant.
This had led to the women involved believing that they were benefitting from a contraceptive device when no such protection was in place.
Terry Regan, head of the firm's Medical Law Team reports that: "The consequence has been dreadful for those involved. They have suffered psychological problems from falling pregnant and from having to make very difficult decisions about terminating the pregnancy. These are precisely the problems that they expected to avoid by agreeing to the implant in the first place.
"We wanted to ensure that the process of bringing this to the attention of the Healthcare Provider and pursuing a claim was as smooth as possible. In this context it is of some benefit that the Healthcare Provider involved has admitted responsibility at an early stage in the process."
Implanon was replaced by a newer version, Nexplanon, by MSD, in October 2010 after pressure from the Regulatory Agency. It includes a new applicator designed to reduce insertion errors.
The team at Wake Smith & Tofields offer a no obligation and confidential initial advice service for anyone who has been affected by Implanon or similar issues.
For further information please contact Terry Regan at [email protected] or call 0114 266 6660
