A woman who has suffered crippling pain from a vaginal mesh implant has told senators of the living nightmare her life has become.
NSW woman Gai Thompson is one of a dozen women to appear before a Senate inquiry in Sydney on Monday.
Ms Thompson told the inquiry of severe complications she's suffered since the surgery including excruciating and chronic pain, losing three pints of blood, multiple autoimmune diseases and the inability to have sex.
"When the doctor told me I would no longer be able to have sex with my husband, he said there was more than one way to skin a cat," Ms Thompson told AAP.
The women are among 800 involved in a class action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, claiming the vaginal mesh implants have left thousands in pain.
Johnson & Johnson managing director Gavin Fox-Smith told senators it was incredibly tough to hear stories from women in pain or suffering.
However, he said stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse were complex conditions and surgical intervention remained an important treatment option.
Mr Fox-Smith said most patients had experienced good long-term results.
"Unfortunately in dealing with a human body no technique, instrument, approach or product is without some risk," he told the inquiry.
Johnson & Johnson maintains it has acted ethically and responsibly in the research, development and supply of its products.
The company discontinued two pelvic mesh devices from the Australian market after the Department of Health asked for more information to be added to the instructions for use of the products.
Mr Fox-Smith said Johnson & Johnson was still confident in the safety and efficacy of the products, and its decision was based on their "commercial viability".
"The costs of making such a change only for the Australian market exceeded the total value of sales for those products in 2016," he said.
Ms Thompson received a mesh implant nine years ago in a bid to repair her damaged pelvic floor.
Just three years later, she approached Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration to warn of a looming disaster involving the device.
While the particular mesh implanted into Ms Thompson - Prolift Pelvic Floor Repair System by Johnson & Johnson - has been taken off the market, there are still surgeons in Australia who are implanting vaginal mesh in women.
"While I'm speaking to you now I can guarantee there is a woman in a Sydney hospital somewhere having mesh put inside her and not realising," she said.
Having visited 13 different surgeons in Australia, Ms Thompson is yet to find one willing to remove the permanent mesh implant.
The Senate inquiry into the devices will hold a public hearing in Canberra on Tuesday.
