A British woman died a month after going to Turkey for weight loss surgery.
Hayley Butler had travelled to Izmir for a gastric sleeve operation in September 2024, accompanied by a friend.
The 40-year-old had apparently failed to get help in the UK so had paid about £2,500 for the package including flights, transfers, accommodation, pre-op tests and medication.
But after the operation at Ozel Gozde Hospital, Butler had made the damning complaint to medics that 'everything hurt.'
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However, the inquest in Norwich heard that she was reassured and given a ‘fit to fly’ letter from the hospital, returning home just two days later.
An obesity doctor at Luton and Dunstable hospital, Tanveer Adil, said Butler had died as a result of the procedure in Turkey and the ‘lack of safety netting’ afterwards.
The Norfolk area coroner, Yvonne Blake, said it was clear the operation ‘had not been done properly.'
A sleeve gastrectomy involves about 80 percent of the stomach being removed.
Having returned home, the dog groomer began to feel increasingly unwell, with her mother Gill Moore saying she was ‘constantly thirsty and had no energy’ but had just ‘thought it was normal’.
“Things got worse over the weekend of the 5 October; she was projectile vomiting and could only consume tiny amounts of anything,” she added.
Butler was then admitted to Norfolk and Norwich Hospital before being transferred to a specialist bariatric unit at Luton and Dunstable Hospital on the morning of 11 October.
She then eventually went into surgery at 5pm and afterwards, Moore says she was told her daughter had a 30 percent chance of survival.
It was found Butler ended up suffering four organ perforations during the operation, including in her colon and oesophagus.
She died on 24 October of multiple organ failure due to sepsis.
The mum added that the doctor told her it was 'the worst he’d ever seen.'
Adil treated Butler at the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, telling the inquest that complications from surgeries carried out in Turkey were a 'matter of significant concern.'
The doctor added that the unit has witnessed a ‘significant rise in complications’ from similar cases, as he said: “I have personally operated on more than 40 of these cases in the past five years alone.”
Adil said: “It is my opinion that the cause of her death was not what happened in Luton, but what happened in Turkey, where there was a lack of safety netting for what was a complicated procedure."
Blake added: “Clearly, the operation was not done properly. For her to have suffered four perforations, anyone can take a common-sense view of that."
Moore also raised her frustrations about the communication with the hospital while Butler was being treated in the UK.
“It is going to haunt me forever that we were just left to work out what was going on. It was the most heartbreaking experience anybody could go through,” the mum added.
LADbible has contacted Ozel Gozde Hospital and Luton & Dunstable Hospital for comment.
Jess Battison