Cosmetic Surgery Abroad on ITV’s DayBreak - My Thoughts

I just watched ITV’s Daybreak on ‘playback’ recorded from this morning, I tutted as I drank my cup of tea… a few thoughts came into my head as I watched the interview, it’s funny I always enjoy a cup of tea and a biscuit but whilst watching the interview I noticed a bitter taste in my mouth.

Up until about a year ago, I was very open minded about Cosmetic Surgery Abroad. My reasoning behind my open-minded stance was this: If a consumer chose to travel abroad to have an elective cosmetic surgery procedure and had a positive experience then live and let live. The wonderful thing about life is that we all were born with freedom of choice and right or wrong it’s a privilege we all enjoy and deserve to do freely. However, *deep breath* one year later I have changed my mind and here is why.

One year ago I was befriended by a lady on Facebook, a lovely, enthusiastic, positive kind of person who created a business selling cosmetic surgery abroad, indeed so enamoured was she by her personal experiences of cosmetic surgery abroad that she set up her business to help others seeking the same kind of transformation and ‘happy ever after’. I watched this person celebrate her successes on social media, and climb to the top of a certain overseas surgery review website as a “leader” on the rankings board to become ‘number 1 cosmetic surgery provider abroad’, her success was met with my enthusiasm and congratulations and an open endorsement (in the form of a supportive comment on her Facebook page) as I genuinely believed in this person, her ethos and her philosophy. Nothing she ever spoke to me about during our “social media friendship” led me to believe she would purposefully put any human being at risk or harm, she also showed a strong allegiance to my philosophy and stance and ethos which is always Safety in Beauty.

However fast forward one year later, and sadly and quite shockingly the lady had her glowing reviews removed from the overseas surgery review website, she also was stripped of her ‘number 1 title’ and I along with many other people who had genuine faith in what was paraded around proudly for all and sundry to see, what soon brought crumbling to the ground, leaving those of us who had believed in the ‘business’ feeling slightly more foolish for the naivety of the reviews we had read, now seemingly ‘creatively conjured up in a non sincere form’, i.e. fake.

What is worse than the untrue reviews were the first hand experiences that had now begun to come out of the ‘woodwork’ and transpired regarding the reality of cosmetic surgery abroad, and nothing is more brutally shocking that the truth, and for me this came in the form of long painful to read e-mails, illustrated with real photographs of real people that had experienced the reality of the consequences of ‘when cosmetic surgery abroad goes wrong’. I am going to be honest and say this hand on heart, the photographs I saw of a dozen or so patients that had gone abroad for surgery left very little to be desired. In my NON MEDICAL opinion the work was clearly sub-standard, leaving behind results that were not just physically unsatisfactory but clearly distressing for the patient physically and emotionally. Photographs were testimony to the fact that surgical scars lay where they should not be, and instead of a brighter, perkier, brand new person smiling back, I saw shadows of disillusioned angry and hurt patients who had put their faith in a service that had clearly been let down.

On one occasion I intervened to help try and mediate a situation between an unhappy patient and the surgery ‘agent’, however what angered me was the complete lack of empathy from the ‘absent’ surgeon, It was the ‘surgeons’ mess after all! And where was he? Oh yes probably operating on the next unsuspecting patient, or carrying out a jolly consultation through his translator. I told the agent I was not impressed by the photographs the lady had shown me, there was an eerie silence that followed my declaration, we had been friendly to one another on Facebook, I had always been supportive of her endeavours and now here I was declaring unity with the patient, the silence quite clearly indicated how I had “turned”, and yes the truth is at that split second in time I did turn for good. I turned out of anger for the surgeon’s lack of involvement, and how the patients’ cries had fallen on deaf ears. At first I will confess I thought the woman ‘may’ have been exaggerating her ‘disappointment’ with the surgical outcome she had experienced BUT nothing slaps you more violently in the face than the truth and the photographs in my e mail inbox of that woman’s surgical outcome said it ALL. The tide did turn that day.

I thought about that patient for along time, long into the evening as I lay there thinking “how would I feel, if I invested so much money, hard earned money into transforming my life, only to feel it had been devastated through no fault of my own?” Imagine the frustration of trying to communicate your anger through a translator? Or an agent who has absolved all ‘liability’? Ultimately the fault is clearly that of the surgeon in my opinion, but regardless of this and no matter how many pleas of “not guilty” the agent/broker may have stated, the booking broker or agent does play a huge part in the process, just as she did in this case.

So if you are a cosmetic surgery overseas operator or broker you’ll now be tutting at me with much disdain and disapproval at my words, however that does not bother me too much, why? Well let me explain clearly. If you are a cosmetic surgery overseas’ business and you have made it your livelihood to make money from ‘brokering’ deals from people’s choice to have elective surgery, then I’m sorry you have to accept responsibility in the process.If you sell a service so fervently, and you pepper it so brilliantly in your marketing strap lines with the promise of a better happier life, then the great expectations you promise must be delivered. Expect a reasonable portion of blame to come your way if those expectations are not quite lived up to, if a patient is unhappy, part of that unhappiness will be directed at YOU, that’s life it’s NOT personal, it’s business, how you choose to deal with an unhappy patient with very real and very physical evidence to substantiate her claim, is the ultimate difference in what makes you a professional.

In simple terms: If I book a holiday with a tour operator who has promised my hotel to be ‘paradise’ only to arrive at my destination and find out that my hotel is ‘hell’, well I will NOT be very happy with the tour operators suggestions and I will take recourse with the tour operator. After all I bought into what I was being ‘sold’.

I wish to add there are some fantastic international surgeons abroad, but they are not the ones that are touting for business from the UK, the sub-standard surgeons are having to dip into other countries to make their living, I find this disconcerting, a good surgeon is always busy, again this is my opinion.

I don’t wish to digress, what I want to do is make my reasons clear as to why I no longer believe cosmetic surgery abroad to be safe: here are my very well researched and very well substantiated reasons,

1. I do not believe Cosmetic Surgery abroad is safe, for every 1 positive story there are at least 3 that are not.

2. Language is a barrier, I would not want my surgery carried out by a surgeon who could not understand what I was wanting to achieve, unless he clearly understood those objectives from me directly and not a translator who spoke broken English, I would be too scared that something would get lost in translation.

3. To sell a medical operation even if it is cosmetic and elective as an addendum to a holiday or a luxurious desirable item is completely unethical, tacky and wrong.

4. To make a living from being a business that ‘brokers’ peoples lives and well-being is not the kind of way I would want to make a living. The responsibility and duty is HUGE, I could not undertake such a delicate task.

5. How do surgeons train in other countries? Are their standards the same as the UK’s? what do they do to maintain their skills and level of expertise?

6. Pain relief! How can you communicate you’re in pain when you need a translator to do that for you?

7. How will you fly back home if you develop a complication that you did not expect? how will your surgical agent help you? better still how will your surgeon help you?

8. You will save in the short term, but not in the long term, there is no such thing as a ‘bargain cosmetic surgery operation and a holiday chucked in for good measure’

9. Medical consultations should only and always ever be carried out by a medical professional and usually the surgeon who would operate on you, not an agent or translator or sales rep, please do disagree with me if you feel I am wrong.

10. The UK has plenty of good surgeons, and if budget is of the issue well, think about the price of your life, and that should put things into perspective.

Finally, it is your choice, and I am huge believer in the freedom of choice, but if the freedom to make a choice should come at the cost of your well-being, your life, your health, well then allow yourself a moment to pause in reflection before making that giant leap of faith.

NOTE: This blog is my opinion, the facts are real and authentic and can be substantiated however names have been omitted to protect the individuals discussed in accordance with privacy and legal obligations.