A woman from north Wales died after travelling to Turkey for weight loss surgery, an inquest has heard. Janet Savage, 54, from Penrhosgarnedd near Bangor, underwent a gastric sleeve operation at the private Ozel Rich hospital in Antalya on 5 August last year but never regained consciousness.
The inquest in Caernarfon heard that Savage, a driving examiner, had contacted Regenesis Health Travel, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, to arrange the procedure. She had been taking the diabetes drug Ozempic and hoped to lose three stone.
During the operation, Savage suffered a major artery trauma to her abdominal aorta. Although the injury was repaired and blood was replaced, she went into cardiac arrest. She was transferred to intensive care but died at 7.45am on 6 August.
Senior coroner Kate Robertson recorded a narrative conclusion, stating that during the gastric sleeve procedure, a major artery trauma occurred. The aorta was repaired but she went into cardiac arrest. A postmortem by Dr Muhammad Aslam gave the medical cause of death as acute blood loss due to an injured abdominal aorta.
