The NHS needs to ‘pick up’ pieces of the medical tourism ‘boom’, doctors say
The NHS must provide emergency care to an increasing number of patients experiencing serious complications after weight loss surgery and hair transplants abroad, amid a ‘boom’ in medical tourism, doctors have warned.
Doctors said they had to “pick up the pieces” as more Britons seeking cheap operations abroad return with infections and other problems. In some cases, patients die as a result of botched surgeries performed in other countries.
Hospitals have even had to cancel planned procedures for patients because beds were occupied by someone needing a procedure abroad.
There were also concerns about patients buying weight-loss drugs abroad, including Wegovy, without receiving the necessary “wraparound” care, doctors said.
It follows a warning from the NHS’s top doctor earlier this month that people who don’t need the drugs should not take them to lose unwanted weight and get ‘beach body ready’ for the summer.
The British Medical Association’s annual meeting in Belfast heard that there had been a ‘boom’ in surgical tourism, which was ‘leading to an increase in serious complications and deaths following operations’.
David Strain, chairman of the BMA’s scientific council, said more Britons were traveling abroad for procedures, but not everyone was getting the care they would expect in Britain.
The Foreign Office’s travel advice says the level of medical facilities and treatment “can vary widely around the world” and highlights how six British nationals died in Turkey in 2023 following medical procedures.
Delegates passed a motion expressing concern about patients needing emergency surgery on return to Britain. They also called for more weight management services, which should be partly funded by an increase in the sugar tax.
Dr. Samuel Parker said: “(There are) reports of shortcuts, inappropriate use of disposable instruments and patients suffering serious complications requiring emergency NHS treatment.”
Strain told reporters: “Surgical tourism has been a problem for some time. People mainly disappear to South Africa and Turkey, but there are many other places where they can disappear.
“And complications can occur late with any procedure, not just obesity surgery, even something as simple as hair implants that people travel for. You can get infections and the problem is that people are coming back and asking the NHS to pick up the pieces for procedures that have been carried out to less of the standards that we would normally apply in Britain.
“Health tourism is increasing because people are a little more affluent, international travel is easier than it used to be and organizing these things is easier thanks to the internet.”
Strain warned that the increase in operations abroad was fueled by a “social media nation” where people felt the need to present themselves in a certain way.
“What we can never guarantee are the surgical standards in different countries, and even the equipment that may be used, and that is where the risk arises,” he said.
“Anything that adds an extra burden – if (a person) fills a hospital bed, for example with an infection, there are only so many beds, and a hospital bed is full of someone who is away for a procedure (abroad) who must be carried out means that there is a good chance that an elective course will be cancelled.
“In an already overburdened healthcare system, health tourism can cause significant problems.”
When asked about weight loss drugs, Strain said people ended up with a skinny “Wegovy face” because they weren’t given the “enveloping” advice about diet and exercise along with the drugs.