“If 20,000 penises were falling off, the world would stop.” Consumer advocate Erin Brockovich campaigns against contraceptive device failing women.

More than 20,000 women have been harmed by the popular contraceptive device.

Nina Bernius, a mother of three from NSW had the Essure device fitted as she felt she had finished her family.

The coil-like implant claimed to offer 99.8 percent protection, and was used by over 750,000 women around the world so she felt safe, but just one year in Ms Bernius was shocked when she fell pregnant on the permanent sterilisation device,  not just once, but three times.

The first pregnancy took place just one year after having the device fitted, and it wasn’t until she was four-months along that she discovered the pregnancy.

She told The Cessnock Advertiser that she made a decision she found traumatic to terminate.

“I was in shock. I thought there was something wrong with this baby, because this is not right,” Ms Bernius said.

“I had to give birth to the baby in the toilet, which was horrific, and then I broke up with my partner.”

After the termination, Ms Bernius’ gynaecologist ran tests on the Essure, but she was told it operated properly and she was advised that it would never happen again, but three years later, and now married she fell pregnant again. This time she decided to go through with the pregnancy.

“I was still dealing with the trauma of having to deliver a foetus into a kidney dish, and, yeah, I just had to like, do the right thing, I think, with this one,”

Her pregnancy, during which she was terrified the coils would poke the fetes, resulted in her daughter, now aged five.

Ms Bernius told Seven’s Sunday Night that it was less than two years later she once again fell pregnant.

“I was horrified and I thought, ‘Well…what’s wrong with me?’ ‘I’m sterilised, and yet I keep on getting pregnant.”

“I guess that’s what made me think that I needed to do something because I had these foreign objects in my body and they weren’t working.”

The foreign object she is referring to is the device, Essure, a device fitted to 750,000 women worldwide and one that may have harmed thousands of Australian women and up to 20,000 women worldwide.

The device Essure is a coiled contraceptive implant spruiked by pharmaceutical giant Bayer as a safe non-surgical solution that only takes 15 minutes to insert into the fallopian tubes.

Ms Bernius, who thought the problem must be her, learnt that the Essure coils had pushed out of her fallopian tubes, causing the three pregnancies, she was forced to have a hysterectomy.

“The pain is excruciating. I would definitely tell women to run away if they hear the word ‘Essure’, you know, for your own peace of mind, for your health. Run away,” she said.

She is not alone, thousands of women are coming forward with complications that range from pregnancy to excruciating pain, haemorrhaging and punctured reproductive tissue.

Ms Bernius, an academic advisor, recently won a lawsuit against her gynaecologist over her lengthy ordeal.

Consumer advocate Erin Brockovich has backed a campaign in the US to have the controversial contraceptive pulled from the market due to the many reported side-effects.

“There are too many women harmed all by the same common denominator, and that is a device called Essure. How many women have to be harmed before we stop?” Ms Brockovich told Sunday Night.

She questioned why the women harmed were being ignored.

“I’d love to see the headline ‘20,000 men’s penises fall off’. I’m telling you, the world would stop.”

A Facebook group with more than 20,000 members is lobbying the manufacturer to pull the product. The group want to bring a class action against Bayer, the manufacturer, but are prevented from doing so by federal laws.

“There’s too many voices, there’s too many women harmed all by the same common denominator, and that is a device called Essure,” Erin Brockovich said.

“They want the truth, they want this pulled, they don’t want anyone else harmed. they’re getting the truth and I think they will continue as long as it takes.”

One of the women Angie Fermalino told Sunday Night that she felt immediate pain when the device was inserted.

“Oh, it was immediate. During the insertion, it started. I could feel them putting them in and I could feel them in me when I left. And it never went away.”

After a series of operations and a life dependent on painkillers she says her life has been left broken.

“I thought I was going to die. I had a hysterectomy and then two subsequent surgeries because I just kept bleeding and haemorrhaging. I wasn’t healing. “

Lisa Flynn, a partner at Australian compensation specialists Shine Lawyers, told Sunday Night that “hundreds or even thousands” of Australian women may be affected.

“Litigation can’t change what has happened. However, what it can do is it can provide compensation to women so that they can get the medical treatment that they need to move on with their lives,” Ms Flynn said.

In a statement sent to Sunday Night, Bayer said they stood by the benefit-risk profile of Essure.

“Patient wellbeing is the top priority at Bayer and there is great sympathy for anyone who experiences an adverse event from a medicine or medical device, regardless of the cause,” they said.