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What if something goes wrong after obesity treatment abroad?

Obesity surgery may be growing in popularity, but it remains a relatively new area of surgery and some techniques have only been used for fifteen years at most. It is important that you take these potential problems into account when considering obesity treatment abroad so that you know what to do if something goes wrong. You need to know in advance who will pay for remedial treatment and where you stand if you want to make a claim against the clinic.

Knowing what to expect after obesity surgery

As with any medical treatment, it is important to discuss your obesity surgery with your surgeon in advance. You understand how you should expect to feel afterwards as part of your recovery and what symptoms may indicate a problem.

It is not unusual, for example, for gastric band patients to experience nausea and vomiting as they get used to the amount of food their stomach will tolerate. However, if you are struggling to keep anything down once you’ve left the clinic, you could quickly become dehydrated and face serious medical problems. Understanding when to get help is an important part of dealing with problems.

Problems after obesity treatment

The commonly occurring problems with obesity surgery include:

  • A gastric band that slips and ceases to be effective; around 25% of gastric bands will slip at some point. In rare cases, the band can damage the stomach because it’s too tight.
  •  A gastric bypass that leaks at the point where the small intestine is attached, or around the staples or stitches of the stomach, leading to peritonitis.
  • Digestive disturbances after a gastric sleeve or gastric bypass because you don’t follow the recommended way of eating.

Each of these problems will require further assessment and sometimes remedial surgery. There are also many problems associated with major surgery at large, which also apply to obesity surgery, including:

  • Perforation of the gut, bowel or stomach
  • Damage to major blood vessels
  • Damage to the liver or spleen
  • Blood clots

Of these, blood clots may be a particular concern to patients facing a long haul flight following a major operation, as they can lead to a fatal pulmonary embolism.

Discuss how potential problems will be managed

Since problems can occur at any time during and immediately after your surgery, especially in patients who are overweight and in generally poor cardiovascular health, you should ensure that the clinic you choose is equipped to deal with such emergencies. If they do not have intensive care facilities themselves, you need to make sure that a local hospital is close by and able to cope with morbidly obese patients.

Act quickly if you experience problems

Once you are home and no longer under the care and supervision of the surgeon who carried out your obesity surgery, you need to keep a close eye on your own health and wellbeing. If you believe that something has gone seriously wrong it is important that you act quickly and attend your local accident and emergency department or emergency room. Do not let the fact that you have had your surgery abroad stop you from seeking emergency treatment at home.

It will help enormously if you have obtained detailed medical records from your clinic abroad, as this will let your home medical team know what surgery you have had and what may have gone wrong. Without this information, they could waste valuable time diagnosing the problem, when they could be helping you.

Contracts and insurance for obesity treatment abroad

You should ensure that you get a written contract detailing who is responsible for what if something goes wrong. Without this, you could wake up from your surgery to find yourself facing a huge bill. Even minor complications will involve extra nights in hospital for you, and extra hotel nights for your companion, and you need to be clear who will pay for these and under what circumstances. You should also check who pays for any treatment you need once you return home.

Be careful not to sign any consent forms or waivers at the bedside without checking them carefully, as you may find that you have inadvertently signed away any rights to claim against the surgeon or clinic if something does go wrong.

Any reputable clinic should have malpractice insurance to cover the cost of problems that occur as a direct result of their own fault, and you should ask for proof of this in advance. It is unlikely that ordinary travel insurance will cover problems from medical treatment abroad, but you can find specialist policies that will cover certain problems and emergency situations – see the next section on insurance for obesity treatment abroad.

Making a claim

Remember, if you are making a claim for medical negligence against a clinic abroad, as a result of problems following obesity surgery, then it is highly likely that you will have to take such action in the courts of that country. This can be complex, expensive and drawn out, and even in the best case scenario, may not give you the level of compensation that you would expect at home. This is an important consideration when comparing the cost of treatment abroad to treatment in your home country.

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