Risks of cut-price cosmetic surgery abroad
08/11/2006
May I thank you for the way my accident claim has been handled, after my accident my confidence was very low indeed but the sympathetic handling of my case restored my confidence.
John, Sheffield
Woman who opted for
cut-price cosmetic surgery abroad are inundating hospital with pleas
for help after their operations went disastrously wrong.
Complications after surgery
Plastic
surgeons at The James Cook University Hospital have carried out
emergency surgery on an increasing number of patients who had flown
overseas in a bid to improve their looks on the cheap.
In many cases, women patients have been suffering from life-threatening infections.
Other
patients who have suffered problems with surgery have had to be turned
away because the NHS is not funded to carry out cosmetic, non-urgent
surgery.
Angela Curran, Clinical Negligence Partner at Irwin
Mitchell Solicitors, urged anyone considering going abroad for "cheap"
cosmetic surgery to think carefully before doing so.
She said:
"before embarking on a course of cosmetic surgery you should consult
your GP and ask if there is any potential for having the surgery done
on the NHS if there isn't then they should ask their GP to refer them
on a private basis for a consultation with a reputable plastic surgeon.
"The
cost of this initial consultation is relatively modest and they can get
a view as to whether or not what they are proposing is possible and the
cost of having this done privately in this country.
"The
advantage of having the treatment done here is that if something did go
wrong then the surgeons are insured and easy to trace if a negligence
action needs to be brought for compensation, the very opposite is true
if the surgery is performed abroad."
A recent example from The
James Cook University Hospital was "Carol", 43, from Middlesbrough, had
to have emergency surgery to drain an infected stomach wound and remove
a large blood clot following a tummy-tuck operation in the Czech
Republic.
The operation in Prague cost £2,000 and seemed to go
well. But a few weeks later, the mother-of-two developed complications
and was admitted to James Cook hospital for seven nights.
She said: "It was really frightening. I was going back to have a bust reduction but now I've cancelled it."
Cut-price cosmetic surgery
No
record is kept of the number of British women going to countries such
as Thailand, Egypt and India, as well as Eastern Europe, for cut-price
surgery, but the sector is said to be expanding.
The Department of Health provides a booklet for UK patients called Considering Cosmetic Surgery?
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