UK woman died after butt-lift surgery in Turkey ‘after surgeon walked out’
13 November 2024, 08:47 | Updated: 13 November 2024, 09:01
A British woman died after undergoing a Brazilian butt-lift operation in Turkey, an inquest heard.
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Hayley Dowell, 38, died after suffering medical complications in October last year after her surgeon left halfway through the operation, a coroner was told.
She had paid over £7,000 for a Brazilian butt lift, a tummy tuck and liposuction.
Winchester Coroner’s court heard Hayley and her husband arrived at the clinic in Istanbul on October 1 last year and she underwent the procedure the following day - before dying at ‘around midnight’ that evening.
Mr Dowell said he and his wife had researched the clinic. “We found a surgeon that had a clinic named after himself. He was one of the [top five] surgeons in Turkey,” he told the hearing.
Read more: British mother-of-two dies during £2,750 weight loss operation in Turkey
“It should have been a six-hour operation but it wound down to one hour 45 [minutes],” he said. “The surgeon left halfway through the operation and left the anaesthetist to do the job. You can’t do both at the same time.
Nicholas Walker, area coroner for Hampshire, said he would be conducting a full investigation into the information Dowell received and the circumstances of her death.
The Foreign Office says that at least six British people died in Turkey last year after medical procedures. In 2022 it was reported that 17 British people had died in the country since 2019 after medical tourism visits.
Janet Lynne Savage, 54, from Bangor, died after suffering damage to one of her main arteries during the procedure.
Despite the efforts of medics at the hospital in Antalya she died in intensive care on August 6 last year.
Mrs Savage contacted a health travel firm called Regenesis Health Travel at the start of July last year, and within 24 hours had signed up for surgery a month later in Turkey, the inquest heard.
She said she wanted to lose three stone.
Alison Ergun, a client service office at Regenesis, said in a statement for the inquest: "There was a complication and she had stopped breathing in the first few minutes of surgery."
