There’s a new Dr Sibh in town (just one example of a previous thread about her here) https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4651413-dr-sibh-gallagher-reported-to-ftc-for-false-promotion-of-surgeries?flipped=1&page=2
She’s the Irish plastic surgeon based in Miami responsible for hundreds and hundreds of top surgeries on young women - or ‘yeeting the teets’ as she affectionately calls double mastectomies.
I recently noticed on Instagram that several UK-based teenagers/young adult women, were travelling to Turkey to have double mastectomies. The same place kept cropping up and appearing on these individual’s threads. It would appear that a cheery transman representative of this clinic, regularly travels to the UK, attending Pride events in places like Brighton , and promoting their services. They seem to be doing the rounds in several European cities. They also promote themselves by commenting on the individual’s post-op Instagram threads as they share their ‘chest reveals’.
The advertising is cutesy and basically sells it like a fun holiday abroad, with limo pick-ups from the airport, a quick bit of major surgery and a few sightseeing boat-trips thrown in - ‘health tourism’ they call it.
There are some awkward testimonials from quite young ‘patients’ on their page - many Italians and many British. It is utterly depressing. Some seem so painfully awkward and shy, and it’s obvious that many of them have never even been abroad before. Imagine your first trip abroad involving the removal of your breasts?
I don’t know why I’m posting other than to express my horror that such major surgery is being promoted so casually. And I’m also so disappointed that many young people from the UK are travelling to Turkey for these ops - some with a parent or mate in tow, others alone. They even have a ‘buddy deal’ where if you and your mate come along and get operated on on the same day, you get 10% off.
It just makes me feel uncomfortable - I’ve no idea how much counselling they get beforehand - it’s not mentioned in their jolly reels. You can see for yourself if you look up nedadeniz health tourism agency (without the gaps - I didn’t want to link to it directly as I wasn’t sure if that was allowed?)
How is aftercare dealt with once they’ve flown back home? What if there are complications - does the NHS have to deal with it? And I’m guessing it costs in the region of at least 8-10 grand? Surely they can’t all be funded by GoFundMes (although there are loads of them being promoted on Insta) I don’t do TikTok but they also promote their services heavily on there as a few of the patients said they learned about the surgeon on there.
I know people will argue about bodily autonomy but I really fear that many of these young people aren’t thinking through the long term consequences of their actions.