Welsh woman died after stomach surgery in Turkey, inquest heard
A woman died during surgery after traveling to Turkey for weight-loss surgery, an inquest heard.
Janet Savage, 54, underwent stomach surgery but never returned from the procedure.
Savage, from Penrhosgarnedd near Bangor, had traveled to the private Ozel Rich hospital in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya hoping to lose three stone after previously taking Ozempic.
A senior coroner at an inquest in Caernarfon found that Savage, a driving examiner, died of acute blood loss due to an injury to her abdominal aorta, which had undergone an attempted repair, following stomach surgery.
Savage had contacted a company called Reginis Health Travel, based in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, the inquest heard. It organizes flights, hotels, surgical and non-surgical procedures at Ozel Rich Hospital.
Kate Robertson, senior coroner for North West Wales, read out a statement from Alison Ergun, Reginis’ customer service manager.
Ergun said Savage told her in an exchange of Facebook messages in July last year that she was taking Ozempic, a drug designed to treat people with type 2 diabetes, and wanted to lose three stone.
The women switched to WhatsApp to take the booking and the operation was booked at the hospital in Antalya on August 5 last year.
The inquest heard that Ergun was later informed by her operations manager that there had been “complications”; Savage had stopped breathing and was taken to the intensive care unit. She died the next day, on August 6 at 7:45 am.
A doctor told how Savage had suffered “major artery trauma”, which was repaired and blood replaced. But during the operation she went into cardiac arrest. She was taken to intensive care, but died despite doctors’ intervention.
Dr. Muhammad Aslam, a consultant histopathologist, performed a postmortem on Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and suggested that the medical cause of death was acute blood loss due to an injured abdominal aorta, which had been repaired.
Robertson recorded a narrative conclusion that Savage had gone to Turkey on August 5 for stomach surgery. She added: “During the procedure it appears that major artery trauma occurred. The aorta was repaired, but she was arrested.”