Should the NHS pay for botched plastic surgery?
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.Lucy Siegle's been investigating the rising trend of people travelling abroad to get cheap cosmetic surgery, now dubbed Surgery Safaris.
Discount prices are the main pull but according to The British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS) nearly a quarter of their surgeons have treated such patients with complications, after having surgery abroad.
Is surgery something worth scrimping on?
Lucy met two ladies, who have both had very different experiences from a Surgery Safari.
Sharon Whitehead was estatic after her recent breast reduction in Tunisia, and feels that for her this was the only option. However Dawn Cracknell's tummy tuck for under £3,000 in the Czech Republic, had very different results. She was left in excruciating pain and a life threatening blod clot.
Dawn is now waiting for another operation, this time with the NHS in the UK, treating her post-procedure complications.
So what happens when things go wrong?
Professor Simon Kay a Consultant Plastic Surgeon from Leeds General expressed his concerns to Lucy about aftercare for patients. He believes when patients experience post surgery complications from an operation abroad, more often than not, it's the NHS that has to pick up the tab.
Is this extra cost and pressure something, the already overstretched NHS, should be footing? Won't everyone else suffer as a result?
Some argue that the people who really are disadvantaged by these returning botch jobs, are the patients who need cosmetic surgery for medical reasons for example, burns victims, people with disfigurements and those needing reconstructive surgery after cancer.
Should those who go abroad to cut the costs of plastic surgery be made to shoulder the costs when things go wrong?
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