For many major purchases, it’s worthwhile to shop around for the lowest price, even if you have to travel a bit to close the deal. There is one major purchase that you don’t want to try that with, though: bariatric surgery. Larissa learned that lesson the painful and horrific way. Her surgery has gone wrong, and now she needs to find a doctor in the US to repair the cut-rate duodenal switch she paid the worst surgeon in Tijuana $12,500 for.

Larissa has been told that she will eventually die without another surgery–and she’s far from the only American who has ventured to Mexico to save money on surgery. She told her story to a Texas television station.

“In the United States the lowest quote I got was $24,000.00 for the surgery and in Mexico,” [she] said. “I was getting quotes of $12,000.00 to $14,000.00 and I ended up paying $12,500.00.”

But it was no bargain–since the April surgery she’s been to the emergency room three times.

Larissa said she’s been told she needs surgery or she’ll slowly die.

“I don’t have any more money, I don’t have insurance and [surgeons here] don’t want to take on somebody else’s mistakes.”

Larissa herself was the person who sent this story in, and I asked her if there was anything she’d like to add that didn’t make it into the news segment. She writes:

The lesson that I want people to take away is this – you have to have money
set aside for possible complications as well as the initial surgery. And if
you have enough money for that – than why not get a competent US doctor
(with US protections) in the first place? I feel like a complete fool. I
gambled, and lost.

 

Medical Tourism: Dangers of Medical Procedures Abroad [The 33]

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