She messaged Bilecik on Facebook and bombarded him with questions to make sure he was right for her. Like most prospective medical tourists, Kibble discovered her surgeon online. When Rachel Kibble, 34, flew to Turkey in 2017 to have weight loss surgery with Dr Bilecik, she never expected to become his business partner. One was a surgeon based in Egypt, the other was Dr Tuna Bilecik - known across many Facebook pages as Dr Tuna - in Mersin, Turkey. Others seek recommendations for specific surgeries, knowing precisely what they want, down to their preferred incision for a breast augmentation.įrom all her scouring, two names stood out to Marshall. In public advice groups, people – mostly women – share their progress, or recommend what clothes to pack when planning for Brazilian Butt Lift ( BBL) recovery. Companies set up private groups for prospective patients where they share success stories. Social media has become a stomping ground for Turkey’s medical tourism industry, which relies greatly on word of mouth marketing. Scrolling through Facebook pages catering to people considering surgery abroad, Marshall became enamoured with people’s transformation journeys and the speed with which they dropped clothes sizes. “Seeing the successes of other ladies has really spurred me on and I want that to be me next.” “I'm desperate for the help now,” she told me. But Marshall knew she wanted to go ahead with the surgery. She zig-zagged between excitement and fear – impatient to get closer to achieving her weight loss goals, but terrified of what to expect. “I wanted to hear all the good, bad and the ugly,” she says. The medical tourism industry is not internationally regulated, so there is little comparative data available on the rates of post-procedure complications in different countries.ĭuring the months prior to her surgery, Marshall joined a Facebook group for victims of botched surgeries in Turkey. Turkey also ranks fifth for the total number of aesthetic procedures carried out in 2020, at just short of 950,000.īut the country has also started to garner a bad reputation: Earlier this year, the British government updated its travel advice to say they were aware of 20 British nationals who had died following medical visits to Turkey since January 2019. The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery ranks Turkey among the top ten countries performing the most popular aesthetic surgeries, including breast augmentation, eyelid surgery, tummy tuck procedures, liposuction and rhinoplasty. Turkey has become a hotspot for medical tourism in recent years, attracting nearly 600,000 people for health services in the first half of 2022, according to the website of USHAŞ, a Turkish state owned healthcare company. But the more research she did, the more she became certain it was the country for her. “At first, I was like there's no way I'm going to Turkey, I'm not crazy,” she says. Marshall decided against the NHS because of wait times that could stretch to several years and the tight eligibility criteria. It is now one of the most popular destinations, alongside Eastern European countries, such as Lithuania, Poland and Latvia, for Brits seeking weight loss surgery owing to its low prices – up to 50 percent cheaper than costs in the UK – and accessibility. Marshall arrived in Turkey only hours before her surgery, one of an increasing number of people who are choosing to travel to the country for medical treatment.
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