Key Summary
- Over half of Britons having surgery abroad suffer from serious complications.
- Fixing these issues costs the NHS up to £20,000 per patient.
- Cheap travel and manipulative advertisements attract people easily, especially women.
More than half of the people (53 percent) who underwent various surgeries abroad are facing post-operative complications such as infections, organ failures, unhealed wounds, according to a study published in BMJ Open.
They often have to undergo corrective surgeries or consume large amounts of antibiotics to recover, and this costs the NHS up to £20,000.
A growing number of Britons are going overseas for weight loss surgery, breast enlargements, hip or knee replacement, eye surgery and dental treatment, and nine out to 10 are women.
Turkey is the most preferred destination, accounting for 61 percent of all such trips.
Cheap air fares, aggressive online advertising and difficulties obtaining NHS has led to a rise in such trips.
It costs NHS hospitals between £1,058 and £19,549 to treat such cases, according to a review by Welsh researchers led by Dr Clare England of Health Technology Wales.
Royal College of Surgeons of England vice president Prof Vivien Lees told The Guardian, “When things go wrong, the NHS is left to pick up the pieces, often in emergencies and without full information about what surgery was done or by whom. That puts patients at risk and adds avoidable pressure to already stretched services.”
Department of Health and Social Care had last year launched a campaign in association with TikTok to warn would-be medical tourists to be aware of the risks involved as part of an attempt to improve the safety of cosmetic treatments as a whole.
