BBC investigation: 7 patients died after gastric bypass surgery in Turkey

2023-03-22 08:23:17Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

7 Britons who traveled to Turkey to have weight loss surgery but died after the operations. Others have returned home with serious health problems after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, during which more than 70% of the stomach is removed.

The operations, used to treat morbid obesity, are also carried out in the United Kingdom. But because it can take years to make such an intervention on the NHS, some people go abroad. 

The treatment in question can be booked in several Turkish clinics in just a few minutes by sending messages on WhatsApp. The cost could be around £2,000 ($2,455). 

Social media advertising has helped drive interest in traveling overseas for weight loss surgery in recent years. Katie (not her real name) from Belfast first thought of traveling to Turkey after seeing an advert online. Like many others, she had seen the "before and after" video, which has clocked up 292 million views in the UK in the past three years. Katie flew in for surgery in October 2021.

Immediately after the procedure, she says she was in agony, but the Turkish clinic told her she was only suffering from trapped gas. After flying home, her pain continued and she was rushed to the hospital. Katie spent almost a year in and out of hospital until NHS doctors were forced to remove her entire stomach.

She says the procedure has left her constantly fatigued and unable to continue her work as a caregiver for the elderly.

"It's the biggest mistake I've ever made. It has ruined my life," she says.

Katie says her treatment and care were unrelated to the promotional material she saw online.

British doctors say they are treating an increasing number of patients who have traveled to Turkey and returned with serious complications. At least once a week, a "very ill" patient arrives at Newcastle Airport from Turkey and is taken straight to hospital.

Dr Ahmed Ahmed, a leading surgeon and council member at the British Society of Obesity and Metabolic Surgery, says he has treated patients returning from Turkey who have had a completely different operation to the one they paid for. But so far there is no data on the number of people who have traveled to Turkey for this type of treatment.

The BBC has learned that 7 Britons have died after undergoing weight loss surgery there since 2019. One of them was 25-year-old Joe Thornley. Officers secured a phone number for the Turkish clinic - which Mick, Joe's father, called.

The doctor said: Oh he had low blood pressure and had a heart attack.

After Joe's body was returned to England, a post-mortem examination revealed that he had actually died of internal bleeding.

"We tried to call the doctor and he just wouldn't answer the phone, refused emails, everything," Mick said.

In the UK, weight loss surgery is usually only offered to someone with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 40 or more. A person's BMI is calculated using a formula that involves dividing their weight by their height - a healthy BMI is considered to be between 20 and 25.

The BBC contacted 27 Turkish clinics to see if they would accept for treatment someone who was considered to have a normal body mass index (BMI) - this is considered to be between 20 and 25. 6 of the clinics agreed to accept someone with a BMI of 24.5 for extreme weight loss surgery. Others encouraged patients to gain weight in order to be accepted for surgery.

Dr Ahmed says the practices are "reckless" and "unethical".

"It's terrible - I've never come across a situation where someone is told to eat more to gain weight. They shouldn't be offering any kind of surgery with a normal BMI."

The government says it is testing new treatments for obesity and recommends that those traveling to Turkey consider the risks and aftercare needs. Meanwhile, the BBC has learned that the number of weight loss operations carried out in England has fallen by a third from 6,818 procedures three years ago to just 4,409 in 2022.

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