A woman who died after travelling to Turkey for Brazilian Butt Lift surgery was not given sufficient information about the procedure’s risks, a coroner has ruled.
Melissa Kerr, 31, travelled to Istanbul’s private Medicana Haznedar hospital last year for the operation.
Kerr was said to be ‘conscious of her appearance’ and had previously undergone breast enlargement surgery in her twenties.
However, she was given “limited information regarding the risks and mortality rate” of a BBL, an inquest heard.
BBLs are performed by taking fat from somewhere else on the body and injecting it into the buttocks.
Kerr died after the fat injected entered a vein before blocking an artery.
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Norfolk's senior coroner, Jacqueline Lake, has now recorded Kerr’s death as a pulmonary thromboembolism.
Lake is now writing to the health secretary Steve Barclay to outline her concerns about patient deaths abroad.
“I do have concerns there will be future deaths and I'm of the view future deaths can be prevented by way of better information,” she said.
“There has been the release of an international alert to surgeons regarding the high mortality rate associated with this procedure.”
Lake continued: “There has also been the introduction of a voluntary moratorium (suspension of activity) on this type of procedure in the UK.
"These are clearly not being followed in Turkey.
"I don't have any authority over hospitals in Turkey and I also appreciate the UK government has no control (over) what happens in other countries.
"However, the danger our citizens will continue to travel abroad for such procedures continues, though citizens are unaware of the risks involved."
The inquest saw a string of messages between Kerr and a hospital worker before she travelled to Turkey. After paying £3,200 in cash, Kerr said she felt “a bit nervous” about the operation.
She also asked multiple times to see photographs of previous patients but there was no evidence they were provided.
Consultant plastic surgeon Simon Withey, who viewed evidence on Kerr’s inquest, said the death rate associated with Brazilian butt lifts is “likely to be in excess of one in 4,000”.
He said it is “quite possible” that, if the risk of the procedure had been explained to Ms Kerr “before she was financially committed to proceed, she would not have done”.
Kerr’s death comes three years after Leah Cambridge died after a BBL in Turkey.
The mother-of-three saved up £6500 for the procedure at the Izmir Private Can Hospital in 2019.
Cambridge was not thought to be fully aware of the risks of the surgery, and died after fat entered her circulatory system and eventually blocked the pulmonary artery to the lungs.
Cosmopolitan UK recently investigated Turkey’s plastic surgery boom. You can read the full report here.
