Ms Terri Martin:

There are no allowances for the means test for the medical card. Women have been maimed. We went in with good faith to have this surgery done. It is not the fault of women, their husbands, their jobs or their retirement funds that they are in this position. It is necessary for women to receive medical cards if they were injured by a mesh. There is a register with the regulatory authority. If people are attending the pathways, they are registered with that. It knows exactly who has this device. It would be for necessities. I do not know if the committee is getting into the nitty-gritty of the price of hygiene products here, but these are available through community care and incontinence care from the public sector. Women should be entitled to those things and should not have greater expense through no fault of their own.