Colm O’Boyle, a surgeon in the Bon Secours hospital in Cork, is the latest to raise concern over complications and mortality rates from surgery abroad.
A Dublin hospital said that it was dealing with a threefold increase in the number of patients presenting for treatment having undergone weight-loss surgeries abroad.
Irish acute hospitals are dealing with up to 40 patients each week arising from complications following such foreign surgeries.
The majority face critical complications arising from botched gastric sleeve or bypass surgeries.
Cork coroner Philip Comyn has dealt with three deaths in recent weeks following surgery in Turkey and Latvia. One woman died in Turkey, but a second post-mortem examination was conducted in Ireland, at the request of her family, under a special provision of the Coroner’s Act.
A verdict of medical misadventure was returned in the case of 53-year-old Pamela Canty, a mother-of-one from Larchfield, Commons Road in Cork, five days after undergoing surgery in Turkey for a gastric bypass, died in Mercy University Hospital in October 2022.
An open verdict was returned in the case of a 46-year-old Estelita Hamelin, of Clondulane, Fermoy in Co Cork, because of a lack of reports from a Turkish hospital. She travelled to Turkey in October 2021 with her daughter for liposuction and a tummy tuck.
Cork City Coroner has warned of risks of surgery abroad, highlighting lack of standardized care and potential substandard practices.
Elena Scherbakova (48) of Mariner’s View, Castletownbere in Co Cork was a Russian national with family links to Latvia. She was told there was a waiting list for the gynaecological procedure she required, and travelled t Latvia where her daughter lives.
She underwent a hysterectomy in Latvia on October 22 but subsequent investigation revealed she also had stage two stomach cancer. She underwent major gastric surgery to address this.
Ms Shcherbakova returned to Ireland but felt very unwell and attended MUH after she partially collapsed on December 14, last year.
Professor Seamas O’Reilly told the inquest that language barriers and procedure access times prompt many foreign nationals resident in Ireland to seek treatment in their home nations.
Consultant surgeon O’Boyle highlighted the hazards of medical tourism, including language barriers, lack of appropriate pre- and post-operative care, and potential for delayed treatment of complications.
“It is very dangerous to do the surgery in isolation as a surgeon is to court disaster. My advice is not to have surgery abroad, particularly if it is bariatric surgery. There is quite a concern in the Irish surgical community that the possible complications and possible mortality related to surgery abroad is much higher than it is here in Ireland. “Lots of corners are being cut. It would be very useful if somebody collated just how many people are dying and then find out how many people are going abroad for surgery. But we suspect it is much higher than it should be.”
“A mother and daughter told me they went abroad – the daughter proved to have an unusual medical condition and the surgeon said she couldn’t go ahead with the surgery. But the surgeon turned around and offered the mother the surgery. The mother had not sought the surgery at all – it is rather crazy behaviour.”
“There doesn’t seem to be any dietary, psychological or multi-team input beforehand and there seems to be very little in the way of follow-up care, which is really important for people undergoing major bariatric surgery.”
“It is a very dangerous undertaking – to consider any surgery abroad, and particularly bariatric surgery. There is a general concern both amongst general surgeons and bariatric surgeons in Ireland that the complication rates from surgeries abroad are considerably higher than they should be.”
Ireland has one of the highest post surgical death rates in Europe. A 2012 European surgical outcomes study found death rates after surgery in hospitals here to be 6.4pc double the European average.
