To think that those who go abroad for cheap cosmetic surgery should insure themselves...

[jemenfous37]

...so that when it all goes wrong, which it inevitably does, the NHS isn't left with the repair bill.

Eveyone moans that the NHS is underfunded, many happily blame migrants (legal or otherwise) or govt underfunding etc.

Yet they then expect it to clear up the mess when their tummy tuck/eyelash extension go wrong. Why should the public fund their vanity project - the surgery they thought they'd get on the cheap in a sunny country?

We cannot afford to provide many procedures/drugs that are actually necessary, but hey, why not spend what little we have hoovering up the consequences of vanity and what appears to be terminal stubborness (because it isn't as if people don't know the potential risks, the media has been covering such stories for years)?

What insurance company would cover a person against something going wrong in private surgery abroad?

You're assuming insurers exist for any other reason than making money. They're not charities. If the odds don't look good for them they won't quote.

Lots of people do risky things. Not just hobbies with a higher risk of injury like motocross or rock climbing, but elderly or unfit people climbing to their roof to fix or clean gutters. Should the NHS decline to help people who hurt themselves doing something risky or just a bit unwise? Or people who take recreational drugs without a clue what's actually in them or the effect substances might have on them?

Where would it end?

I understand that but where are people supposed to go with a raging infection? That simply is then an NHS issue. I paid privately here for my first surgery (was eligible on nhs but didn’t want to wait) and any thing that arose after discharged from the private hospital was an NHS issue as well… there is no alternative really

oh I listened to someone talk about this recently, but it was a woman who had stomach surgery and took really ill on the plane home, had the surgery 3 days previous stayed in a hotel then then flew home. She needed extensive repair surgery.

Anyway I do think they need something to protect themselves and the NHS, but somebody going abroad for cheap cosmetic surgery isn't going to be thinking of repercussions.

Smokers prop the NHS up with the enormous taxation on tobacco!

do they ? I don't think many people smoke these days I mean not enough to prop up and entire health system

Estimated tobacco duties will raise 10.4 billion in the next tax year.

It's not just abroad though. I know someone who had breast reduction surgery from a well known private hospital in the UK and they did an awful job and she needed the NHS to correct the bodged up job.

@Mrsjayy NHS yearly budget is around £180 billion. Annual taxes from tobacco are around £9-10 billion. So it's worth just over 5% of the NHS budget.

Well, given all the anti-smoking messages, the graphic warnings on fag packets, age restrictions and hiding cigarettes from view in the shops it seems the govt still want people to give up.

I can only surmise that treating smokers for their illnesses costs more that tobacco duty rises.

@Sparklesocks Sorry, I should have been clearer! Of course if life is under threat from infection/sepsis treatment isxa given. I'm not that much of a heartless cow! 😄

This is just good old fashioned misogyny. Your mocking tone about eyelash extensions demonstrates that. You specifically mean silly vain women who trot off abroad for boob jobs, bum lifts etc don't you.

@justalittlesnoel Agree current private insurance policies don't cover tgis, but given the increasing cases, it would seem sensible for an insurer to develop such a policy!

wow I didn't think .this many people still smoked.

No. You're still blaming a few hundred people for the failing NHS. It’s not the fault of immigrants, extreme sporters etc etc. It’s down to poor management and chronic underfunding.

Let’s not start blaming each other for the mess the Tories have made. They love it when we do that.

This ^

Getting way more frequent am seeing tons of gastric bands gone wrong abroad and totally ischaemia (dead) stomachs from bands slipping. Had one young girl admitted to icu and her mum was like " least she will lose a lot of weight" - here's me unsure if will survive the night

They need to back bill (same for UK private surgery

eh??

I wouldn't bank on that. Have you not seen that the New Zealand government have u-turned on their smoking ban because they can't afford to lose the taxes?

@Ebokebok my goodness, you are very taxed over a jokey remark about eyelash extensions
Of course I was having 'a pop' if you want to interpret it that way, but how this makes me misogynistic is beyond me - can't women criticise women without being labelled misogynistic? If you read the title properly you'll see I was referred to 'people' not women

Sensible? For a U.K insurer to develop insurance to cover someone travelling to another country to see a surgeon and get cosmetic work carried out. I’m failing to see the logic.

The NHS is failing because of the Conservative Party. Not because someone has had a botched butt lift.

I don’t think an eyelash extension is classed as cosmetic surgery either.😕

The NHS will only intervene if it life threatening, otherwise they expect you to find it yourself (same for private operations on the UK).

I think the NHS has no choice but to treat people who become ill after dangerous unnecessary private surgery, in the same way people are treated after doing other dangerous unnecessary things. There really isn’t any other way. But I’m pretty sure the NHS don’t fix the cosmetic issue. I recall a patient who had had breast implants, and one of them went wrong. The implant had to be removed, and the patient expected the NHS surgeon to put a new implant in. But the surgeons wouldn’t do it. Whilst they restored her health by removing the damaging implant, the NHS wouldn’t put in a new one. She took her complaint to a high level but didn’t succeed.

This isn't "whataboutery", it's the same issue: people using the NHS to treat injuries and illnesses that result from their choices.

What would be the reason for refusing treatment to people suffering ill effects of elective private surgery, but continuing to treat smokers, sports injuries, people who've hurt themselves while drunk, alcoholics, drug addicts etc etc? These people cost the NHS far, far more than surgery gone wrong. There's an element of prejudice behind the idea of singling out people who've had surgery abroad.

I wouldn't bank on that. Have you not seen that the New Zealand government have u-turned on their smoking ban because they can't afford to lose the taxes?

I think the new government has undone it because they want the money to fund other tax cuts. So it's just a decision of which taxes to take and which to lose, rather than not being able to afford it at all.

For the UK, the estimated cost to the economy as a whole (not just cost to NHS, but in sickness etc) from smoking is more than what is brought in by the tax from it.

I think that firstly it's quite disingenuous to infer that people who opt for private surgery don't research it and risk assess it before going ahead.
Secondly, the protocol is exactly the same for private surgery abroad as it is here. The NHS will deal with medical complications but not cosmetic issues. I'm in several weightloss surgery groups and there are plenty of examples of UK surgeries gone wrong (including on the NHS).
Finally, the cost of providing surgery differs from place to place. That doesn't mean the quality of care differs. The price is not always the driving factor either. I had weightloss surgery abroad (not Turkey) because I wanted a specific surgeon due to the technique he uses, having read multiple papers he's written and his record. Granted, it cost me less there than it would here, but with everything considered it wasn't actually that much less. Insurance wouldn't cover it because just in practical terms, how could it when there's inconsistency in legislation across different global territories.

The NHS exists to provide care where it is needed. I'm not in favour of anybody picking and choosing which emergencies should be deemed more worthy than others, and doing that would go against the premise of treating without prejudice. There is a world of financial mismanagement and unnecessary complexity in the NHS. The issue is not the end user, it is the system and the lack of funding and direction at a central government level.