According to an investigation carried out by BBC 5 Live, Sorrel (who did not want to give a first name) did not qualify for NHS weight loss surgery treatment, and so went to Belgium because she was quoted £3600 for the procedure, which is less than she would have to pay privately in the UK. However, she started having problems almost immediately after having a gastric band fitted at the Belgian hospital. ‘I was in a huge amount of pain,’ she told the investigators. ‘My GP was concerned as I was losing a considerable amount of weight quickly.’
For a gastric band procedure, surgeons place a synthetic ring around the upper part of your stomach, which creates a small pouch above the band, restricting your capacity to eat solid food and helping you to lose weight. However, even though Sorrel’s operation caused crippling pains in her chest and stomach and difficulty with breathing, the aftercare team claimed they did not have the facilities to carry out an X-ray and instead simply continued to adjust the band. This team was only available in the UK once a fortnight, and Sorrel says ‘When I complained, they had the audacity to say that I should have gone back to the clinic in Brussels’.
6 months ago, Sorrel finally had emergency surgery on the NHS to have the band removed. She said ‘These companies are selling you dreams. They send you a very colourful brochure with thin people on it with lovely boobs’ but in fact ‘the side effects can be awful and they don’t tell you that.’
According to Ahmed Ahmed, director of weight loss surgery at Bupa’s Cromwell Hospital in London, ‘Surgery abroad can be cheaper but that may be because aftercare is not included’ and the procedure itself is only ‘the start of a process. Lack of follow-up care can result in more complications.’ Ahmed warns that you may even need immediate treatment when you step off the plane ‘I see one or two dramatic cases a year where people have gone straight from the airport to A&E.’