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.Lucy Siegle's been investigating the rising trend of people travelling abroad to get cheap cosmetic surgery, now dubbed Surgery Safaris.
Discount prices are the main pull but according to The British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS) nearly a quarter of their surgeons have treated such patients with complications, after having surgery abroad.
Is surgery something worth scrimping on?
Lucy met two ladies, who have both had very different experiences from a Surgery Safari.
Sharon Whitehead was estatic after her recent breast reduction in Tunisia, and feels that for her this was the only option. However Dawn Cracknell's tummy tuck for under £3,000 in the Czech Republic, had very different results. She was left in excruciating pain and a life threatening blod clot.
Dawn is now waiting for another operation, this time with the NHS in the UK, treating her post-procedure complications.
So what happens when things go wrong?
Professor Simon Kay a Consultant Plastic Surgeon from Leeds General expressed his concerns to Lucy about aftercare for patients. He believes when patients experience post surgery complications from an operation abroad, more often than not, it's the NHS that has to pick up the tab.
Is this extra cost and pressure something, the already overstretched NHS, should be footing? Won't everyone else suffer as a result?
Some argue that the people who really are disadvantaged by these returning botch jobs, are the patients who need cosmetic surgery for medical reasons for example, burns victims, people with disfigurements and those needing reconstructive surgery after cancer.
Should those who go abroad to cut the costs of plastic surgery be made to shoulder the costs when things go wrong?
Comments
Any surgery is a risk- I went to Sri Lanka 18 months ago and had a Full Extended tummy tuck and Liposuction, the service was excellent, the hospital and staff amazing, the website that arranged all the surgery were with me the whole time and the surgeon even visited me at my hotel for follow up care and the price was very affordable.The results were amazing. I went with a well respected company and researched it fully.
After losing 4 stones i needed help to lose the rest of the weight. i have now lost a further 3 stones and am happy with the results.
Any Location & surgery is a risk,and no 2 people have the same reactions and recovery to surgery. my friend had a tummy tuck on the NHS and is still suffering and may have to have a second op to repair a possible botch job, so neither are 100% reliable.
I will be going back next year to have more, maybe Sri Lanka or Malasia, its a great experience to go away have the surgery and a break, sea and sun and come back feeling a new person.
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how many UK operations go wroing and need to be rectified when foreign patients return to their own country?????
Its obvious that the statistics are not being analysed correctly. When using %s you must give the actual numbers involved . As 40% of 5 is 2 but 40% of 100000 is 40000
which is worse????
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I had a breast augementation 7 years ago, last year I caught an infection that attacked my breast implant for an unknown reason and was completly unrelated to the surgery. I needed an ermergency operation to remove the implant and infection and the NHS refused to help me or see me because I had paid for surgery (not abroad). So how come they seem to be fitting the bill of botch jobs abroad, but I had to pay £7000 to sort myself out.
Nina, Wales
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Nina makes a good point. The NHS should always be there in an emergency, but it shouldn't be there to pick up the pieces afer cosmetic surgery, which would not have been available on the NHS in the first place!
Sure, problems can happen wherever the surgery is carried out (Malaysia or Marylebone) but the difference is that if it goes wrong in the UK, the person can go back to the private clinic or surgeon and expect them to help resolve the problem. No-one is going to go back to Poland or the far east,even if they were well enough to travel. The point is not whether it is ok to travele abropad for surgery, but what will happen if something goes wrong (which it will do in a proportion of operations, however good the surgeon is).
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If people who have had affordable plastic surgery abroad must pay for any mistakes made by the surgeon or hospital staff then why should the tax payer pick up the bill for people who get drunk and hurt them self's as a result of being drunk. Where do you draw the line after all being drunk is a self inflicted condition. You may say well when they are hurt and bleeding they become an emergency, well so are the people who have had bad or botched surgery, and it is not as a result of their own actions but rather that of someone else which is not the case of the drunkard.
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I agree, any surgery is a risk. I read about a new insurance company in the Daily Mail who will now insure your surgery abroad in case of any problems, www.angelisgroup.com
If you did have any problems either over there or afterwards they sort it all out for you and pay for any corrective surgery etc.
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Non-medical and unecessary cosmetic surgery absolutely should NOT be paid for by the NHS. Insurance such as the above mentioned, (if genuine), should be obligatory.
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But where do you draw the line Birtannia? Smoking related diseases should not be treated on the NHS?? Nor alcohol related?? It's easy to sit and judge but at the end of the day we all pay our taxes and should be able to use the NHS when we need it. Don't forget many people go abroad for cosmetic surgery that isn't unnecessary - it's not all boob jobs you know!!
Angelis Insurance is genuine and I believe the only one of it's kind - I used them last month when I went abroad for a hip replacement.
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No, I do not think the NHS should compensate for VANITY sake.
These people should be invoiced for costs which could be put back into NHS funding or it should be complusory they take out insurance against bad practice.
People are dying on NHS waiting lists through no fault of their own because of lack of finances.
It makes me angry to think we are picking up the peices of these people who are too vain to accept who they really are.
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Okay, Angelcarols. I meant unecessary as in boob-jobs, face-lifts etc., not hip replacements. The sort of person to whom I refer choose, and can evidently afford to indulge their vanity by taking luxury all inclusive holidays abroad and therefore should, to my mind, be resolutely obliged to also insure themselves. Smokers and alcoholics do I suppose, pay taxes on their indulgences and to be fair (ish), these practices have only recently been positively discouraged. As for drug addicts, since I am not one I have no sympathy and couldn't care less about them. Perhaps it would be fair to draw the line, as you say, by only offering treatment on the NHS to people who have actually subscribed.
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The NHS should refuse to treat any complications caused by unnecessary plastic surgery. That money is being taken away from people who are ill through no fault of their own.
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If people choose to have plastic surgery privately for the sake of vanity, and then have problems once they return home, then I do not think that the NHS should have to pick up the tab, because it uses money which could be used for genuinely ill patients with valid medical conditions.
I find it appalling that patients who need hip replacement are forced to go abroad to alleviate their pain, when these privately treated patients are using up much needed funding.
There are certain conditions where plastic surgery shoudl be available on the NHS, but those are not for vanity's sake, they are valid medical conditions.
I also become extremely angry when private treatment goes wrong, and NHS intensive care beds are taken up, denying seriously ill people proper care.
Private Hospitals must be made to provide their own intensive care facilities, and consultants stopped from using NHS facilities for their paying patients.
Jane - Lincolnshire
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If someone needs plastic surgery let them have it, obviously doctors don't consent to it without valid reasons. Whatever it costs it's still treatment for someone who needs it.
Good luck
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If a patient can afford private surgery, and it goes wrong, they should pay for the correction, however! if they are suffering as a result, and have no money left, you cannot leave them to their fate can you? the N.H.S. is obliged to help, even though it seems to be their own fault. Vi, Northumberland.
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I beleive any person that has vanity based surgery abroad should have total aftercare insurence to pay the nhs for any repairs to botched jobs.I also beleive any person from other countries coming into britain for free nhs operations should be refused treatment unless they have private insurence as we have to have in their countries thus saveing the nhs millions of pounds per year
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