Image caption, Donna said the pain was like being "cut by glass every time I moved" ByJenny Rees Wales health correspondent Published 4 hours ago An operation nearly 20 years ago left Donna Davies in constant pain but she only felt believed by medics after her husband spoke up.
Donna, 56, now requires her large bowel to be removed because of her vaginal mesh medical device, which was removed after she felt it cutting into her.
It was fitted after Donna, from Swansea, developed stress urinary incontinence in her 30s, and the procedure has since been paused by the NHS.
She was invited to attend a women's health summit in Wales this week, which looked at how women's pain is too often dismissed as "normal" within healthcare.
Donna is one of an estimated 100,000 women in the UK who had the procedure to treat incontinence or prolapse.
She said: "The mesh was leaving me in daily pain - the only way I can explain it was that I was being cut by glass every time I moved.
"I didn't feel as if I was believed and I didn't feel my pain was acknowledged until my husband spoke up about an incident we had and then I felt that the surgeon believed my husband." The device was eventually removed and a "sling" made from her own muscles was created at the same time as a total hysterectomy.
"I've never recovered from this operation - I'm still in constant pain, neuropathic pain as well and sadly I'm about to lose my large bowel and have a permanent stoma.
"I feel that women in Wales are being forgotten.
There are no specialist services in Wales for women like myself, yet nine specialist centres in England - we do feel forgotten." Delyth Jewell, the women's health minister in the Senedd, said she wanted rules to be strengthened so that health boards are required to include women in the design of services for them.
"I am determined to strengthen women's voices so that women will be believed about their bodies," the minister said at the women's health summit.
"I wonder how many women will have heard the words 'this might hurt' when they go to the doctor?
"That shouldn't be normal.
Too often women's health services are considered a 'should' not a 'must'.
"We need to make sure that in theatre space they are prioritised more, we need to be making sure that training is improved." Image caption, Isabel Linton, from the charity Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales, said pain can also be dismissed by employers Isabel Linton, from the charity Fair Treatment for the Women of Wales, said getting a diagnosis can often be a challenge "but that's not the end of it, you still need treatment".
"One of the big issues in Wales is that it's hard to move across or between health boards," she said.
But she added it was important for the minister and officials to remember that women's health "is not just obstetrics and gynaecology, or just periods and having babies".
"There are so many other things with a higher female prevalence, like auto immune disorders and cardiovascular health.
Women are much more likely to die of a heart attack because symptoms are based on male symptoms.
"Having a women's health plan is the starting point, not the end of it," she said, adding that the women's health summit at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff would help maintain the momentum.
Image caption, Delyth Jewell says further work will be done later this year to gather feedback from women about healthcare The summit brought together clinicians, researchers and women with lived experience, and minimum standards will now be drafted.
These look to ensure women's voices continue to influence the delivery and future priorities of the Women's Health Plan, which was launched in December 2024 under the previous Labour government.
It included the voices of thousands of women in the design stages, but the deputy minister said further work would be done later this year to get women's feedback on things that needed improvement.
When asked if that would further delay progress, Jewell said she was "determined to see something urgent happening".
"I've seen the stats about waiting lists and I am concerned that for gynaecological services these are some of the longest waits.
We have to bring those waits down.
"We cannot have more women waiting - languishing in pain for years.
This is going to take the whole health service coming together.
