Medical Tourism Travel Agency
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The ultimate cosmetic surgery experience with international travel, top international plastic surgeons, extra support from the experts and other women in the same experience, VIP treatment and luxury hotels for the ultimate recovery all while saving money! For more information on our next Group Tours dates coming up or more information
Welcome To Nip Tuck Holidays
You may be aware of the increasing trend of Australians heading overseas for cosmetic surgery procedures. Australians fly abroad each year for cosmetic surgery and dental procedures where you can save more than 60%! These so-called “Nip Tuck” holidays are growing in popularity!
Nip Tuck Holidays is one of the pioneer medical tourism agency’s in Australia established in 2007. We were the first agency on the Gold Coast to offer to Group Tours to Phuket, with this concept quickly expanding across the East Coast of Australia to become a popular medical tourism concept and making headlines across newspapers and filling magazines!
NipTuck Holidays have strong professional partnerships and have expanded our network globally offering top medical destinations all over the world. We offer clients the entire package and experience-of-a-lifetime in addition to the highest medical standards of JCI accreditation. JCIA is known as the gold standard in medical care that meet or exceeds the set established standards in the US, but also ensuring our attention to detail in all aspects of the Nip Tuck cosmetic surgery holiday experience is indeed world-class.
Happy Clients
We have an abundance of glowing testimonials and photos from young women who have surgery one day, then drinking cocktails by the pool with brand new assets and in bandages pain-free and happy the next!
At Nip Tuck we know understand first-hand how you are feeling, because we have been through this ourselves. We have had surgery ourself as well as been there and have been there personally for thousands of happy and repeat clients whilst they recover. We also have client relations managers in each destination to offer professional support for our clients when having plastic surgery or dental treatment to have active presence at the hospitals and/or dental clinics for appointments, surgery, follow-ups and assistance and our hotels for client support and reassurance. This creates the best experience for our clients whilst abroad in addition to our already high level of customer service.
Happy Clients
Our focus is the medical procedure and physical transformation and our company being of service to you. For most of our clients cosmetic surgery especially in a foreign country that have never been to before is something that they have you have thought about for a long time. We at Nip Tuck understand first-hand how you are feeling, because we have been through this ourselves and have been there personally in the last 15 years for thousands of happy clients.
We are all about making the way you look on the outside match how you feel on the inside on our cosmetic surgery Nip Tuck Holidays experience-of-a-lifetime cosmetic tours. We are so happy to share many success stories of our happy clients.
The Nip Tuck Process
NipTuck offer the trip-of-a-lifetime and can present you with a personally-designed package and provide information and referrals to the best hospitals, clinics and specialists at affordable prices to suit your budget. The international private hospitals in our global network are among the most advanced, accredited and highly reputable medical facilities in the world and certified to international standards. The surgeons and specialists we refer you to are fully certified and members of all relevant professional bodies with up to 20 years of global experience in hospitals. Above all, all the surgeons are distinguished in their field and have a long history of outstanding results.
Our Procedures
Facial Procedures
Breast surgery
Body Procedures
Buttock Implants (BLL)
Face Lift
Rhinoplasty
Non-Surgical Procedures
Vaser Liposuction
Mummy Make-overs
Tummy Tucks
Cosmetic Surgery Procedures for MEN
Gastric Sleeve for Men
Basic dental procedures & whitening
Cosmetic Dentistry
Reconstructive Dentistry
Our Blog
Eyebrow Transplants- Everything You need to Know About the Cosmetic Procedure
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Niptuckholidays
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Wait, that’s a thing?
Well, yeah. They have the same mechanics as a hair transplant: Fine hairs from the back of the head are removed by either a small linear scar or through tiny little circles around the base of each individual hair follicle and then placed into small, very carefully designed sites in the eyebrow [area].
And the result? LIFE-CHANGING!
The big reason why we have waited is that it was expensive! *Insert medical tourism to Turkey* – and the savings are HUGE! Instead of around $8,000 it’s just over $2 395 at 2 locations in Turkey! Istanbul and Antayla including surgery and hotel stay for 3-4 days all inclusive!
The cost of an eyebrow transplant will vary widely based on a range of factors, including how much hair you want to transfer, but it typically runs between $3,000 and $8,000 in Australia and the US. While at NipTuck Holidays we can offer it at just $2,395!!!
For us personally, , having eyebrows is priceless and life-changing, but that’s a lot of money so lucky that NipTuck Holidays offer weekly payment plans that make it affordable!!!!
What does it involve?
According to an article in the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, eyebrow transplant surgery generally starts with a patient and their doctor agreeing on the size and density of eyebrows they’re hoping to achieve, with the doctor drawing a representation on the patient’s face using an eyebrow pencil. Then the doctor goes back in with a surgical marker to note the margins, midlines, and peak points of the eyebrows.
Next, hair follicles (little sacs from which hair sprouts) are harvested from the patient’s scalp using a special machine, and the hair on the follicles is trimmed down to 1 to 2 centimeters in length. A small amount of numbing agent is injected into the eyebrow area, along with tumescent, which is an anesthetic that also helps keep the area firm. Then the hair follicles are carefully inserted into the eyebrows, and any hair that still seems exceedingly long is trimmed to be eyebrow-length.
If all goes well, people will not only have thicker eyebrows after a transplant—the eyebrows will also grow on their own once they’ve healed. But some people might need touch-ups to add extra density or even the eyebrows out over time.
Celebrity Eyebrow Transplant
Chrissy Teigen just underwent eyebrow transplant surgery to create a fuller, fluffier look — and of course she shared the “crazy” results with her social media followers.
Amazing!
What does it feel like?
To start with, the transplant is performed under a LA, which means you are awake awake for the whole 5 hour procedure. But you’re in a good state though let me tell you. You don’t feel a thing, watching Netflix, while they’re picking the follicles out of the piece of skin they took from my scalp near the nape of your neck, where the finest hair grows. They pulled some follicles, and you have have 400 on each brow. After they pull follicles, they’re sitting there, you’re ready!
Then, the doctor comes in and she starts basically putting holes in the brow area and then they place the follicle into that hole. Sounds a bit eekie but it’s not that bad, it’s a medical procedure and how hair transplants are performed without any pain or discomfort. It was not a bad process, honestly.
Light bruising and swelling are common for up to five days after the procedure, and a doctor may prescribe painkillers, antibiotics, and/or steroids to help with the healing process. The eyebrows will then flake and peel for a while before they’re fully healed. The hair that was initially transplanted may fall out too—that’s a completely normal step, and most of the hair will grow back by around three months after surgery.
BUT. Here’s the thing, though: The hair’s in there, and you’re like, OH, MY GODDDDDD! I have my eyebrow hair! It has a bit of a scab and then falls out. You’re left with nothing again. Three months later, you see your actual results. For three months, you’re going, Did I just waste my money? My brows are This didn’t work. It feels almost devastating when you’re like, they’re still not, they’re still no eyebrows. But it really, because of where they put the follicle, it really does take time for the hair to become one, and then sprout out just like it does on your head. You just have to give them time, and then, all of a sudden, they grow, and they grow!
Do not fear, the hairs will slowly grow in naturally and give a natural result!
My experience with NipTuck Holidays
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Claire Licciardo
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My experience with NipTuck Holidays began in 2013 when I travelled in a group tour for a breast lift and augmentation, after being referred by a friend who had travelled the previous year. From the outset, Claire was so knowledgeable and made the process of booking everything so easy.
I had never been overseas so having surgery as well was a little nerve wracking, but my mind was at ease after having everything taken care of. Claire was available to answer any questions or concerns I had, which were few. The hospital and its facilities are world class and I had such a great experience the first time, I booked again in 2014, 1 year later for dental treatment.
Not only was I saving thousands of dollars each time, I was provided world class care and treatment by highly skilled doctors and nurses. Having been treated at many different hospitals in Brisbane, I can say that nothing compares to the facilities in Phuket. It’s now 9 years later, and I have decided to have revision surgery and more dental work. I’ve had absolutely no issues with my breasts, it’s merely a change in shape and size that I desire. I’ve unfortunately fractured the root of one of my teeth and also need fillings and crowns.
The cost in Australia is astronomical and I have chosen to have NipTuck Holidays plan this trip for me again. All I’ve had to do is provide images, travel availability and the rest has been organised for me. Claire is very down to earth and is a wealth of knowledge of the medical tourism industry as well as having long standing relationships with the hospital and their staff. I am leaving in 10 days and am so excited to be welcomed back to Phuket.
South Korea prepares for post-pandemic days with a facelift
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Published in the Washington Post by Min Joo Kim and Simon Denyer
SEOUL — In the offices of Grand Plastic Surgery in Seoul’s glitzy Gangnam district, Rhee Se-whan has been busy nipping, tucking and keeping up with clients who see the coronavirus pandemic health rules as the ideal time to tweak their looks.
The doctor — and many others in South Korea’s plastic surgery empire — find themselves in one of the more improbable niches of the pandemic: a miniboom even as other looks-conscious businesses such as fashion and salons have taken big hits from lockdowns and the shift to working from home.
Cosmetic surgery and skin clinics in South Korea recorded a 10 percent jump in sales in the first 10 months of 2020 from the previous year, according to a survey by the Hana Institute of Finance in Seoul.
That boost came without the normal medical tourists from overseas who flock to South Korea, a center in Asia for cosmetic surgery and one of the world’s best-known locales for aesthetic procedures.
The demand these days is nearly all local. Rhee said many have taken advantage of the coverage offered by masks to get cosmetic work done.
“We have seen a jump in nose jobs and wrinkle treatment among older people,” he said.
What else is hot? Eyelift or eye bag removal, he said. Body contouring and liposuction, too.
Dr Rhee Se-whan
“Because,” he said, “people are not working out as much while staying at home.”
Some South Koreans — mainly women, but an increasing number of men as well — have become more self-conscious about lines or bags around their eyes because that’s the only part of their face visible in a masked world.
There is also the Zoom effect — noted by some clinics in the United States and elsewhere — in which the chats with co-workers double as digital mirrors for people to stress over perceived wrinkles and lines. The result: a spike in Botox treatments.
Rhee’s patients include people like Kim, a woman in her 30s, who spoke on the condition that she is identified only by her surname out of privacy concerns. She had extra time and money on her hands after her vacation abroad was canceled last year.
“I’ve been considering it for the past five years, and the pandemic year turned out to be perfect timing,” she said.
Kim had what’s known in South Korea as “aristocrat surgery,” the removal of laugh lines she believes made her look older.
“My doctor told me it usually takes a week for post-surgical recovery, but I could actually go to work the day after the operation, as I was wearing a mask at the office the whole day,” she said. “My laugh lines were recovering underneath the mask as I was working.”
South Korea has the fifth-highest number of plastic surgeons in the world, with more than 2,500 in 2019, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. That’s fewer than the 6,900 in the United States and the more than 6,000 in Brazil, but higher on a per capita basis.
Lee Eun-hee, a professor of consumer studies at Inha University in Incheon, said it reflects the country’s obsession with physical appearance.
“Girls these days grow up looking at K-pop stars who look like living dolls, and plastic surgery ads target women as young as teenagers,” she said.
In South Korea’s hyper-competitive society, she said, women face so much pressure to look good that it’s almost as though they are in a nationwide beauty contest.
“Korean women find good looks give them decisive leverage, not only in the dating and marriage market, but also in the job market,” she said.
Now, she said, people are making up for lost travel opportunities by splurging on things they can do at home — and plastic surgery is the “peak” item on the binge list.
Demand from South Koreans used to be bunched in the summer and winter holiday seasons, as well as just before the start of the college academic year. During the pandemic, it was spread throughout the year.
The number of people working from home is a big factor, said Rhee, the surgeon, whose office is adorned with photos of him posing with K-pop stars and actors.
“After a facelift, patients need to set aside time for recovery,” he said. “Since the pandemic, patients don’t need to take a week’s vacation anymore; they can spend that time working from home.”
Kim, the patient, says she and her colleagues increasingly share information about plastic surgery, including recommendations about good surgeons or clinics.
“Now that I have fully recovered from the aristocrat surgery, I am actually thinking of getting new facelifts before the pandemic is over,” she said.
At this rate the sky is the limit now the borders are open and patients from all over the world can travel again to South Korea- the plastic surgery capital of the world!
Coming soon to NipTuck Holidays!!!!!!
Article published in Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/korea-pandemic-plastic-surgery-boom/2021/04/23/117b0556-a0e4-11eb-b314-2e993bd83e31_story.html?fbclid=IwAR27_bwKzovrsiB3uAFdsUTUwVI_x-3IVzKsjTeOGatwHss-7x53Xa4xGk4
Confirmed: Australia’s international border will reopen from mid-November
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Claire Licciardo
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These changes mean there will be no travel restrictions if you are a vaccinated Australian entering or leaving the nation’s shores.
Morrison also said the government is working towards completely quarantine-free travel for certain countries, such as New Zealand when it is safe to do so.
It will also become easier to enter Australia with the plan abolishing international arrival caps on returning vaccinated Australians.
Citizens and permanent residents fully immunised with a vaccine approved or recognised by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) will be required to undergo seven days’ home quarantine.
Others will be required to enter 14 days of managed isolation.
After more than 18 months of being shuttered, PM Scott Morrison has confirmed today that Australia’s border will officially reopen to inbound and outbound international travel from mid-November in states that have hit vaccination targets.
You heard it here. It’s finally happening.
Australia’s tough outbound border restrictions will be scrapped when states and territories are expected to hit 80 per cent double-dose vaccination coverage.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday revealed the path back to international travel with the new system expected to start in November.
“There are no surprises here, this is what we set out to do,” said Morrison.
“Australia will be ready for take-off very soon.”
Restrictions on people leaving the country will be scrapped at 80 per cent coverage – expected in early November in some jurisdictions.
Current overseas travel restrictions will be removed and Australians will be able to travel subject to any other travel advice and limits, as long as they are fully vaccinated and those countries’ border settings allow.
These changes mean there will be no travel restrictions if you are a vaccinated Australian entering or leaving the nation’s shores.
Morrison also said the government is working towards completely quarantine-free travel for certain countries, such as New Zealand when it is safe to do so.
It will also become easier to enter Australia with the plan abolishing international arrival caps on returning vaccinated Australians.
Citizens and permanent residents fully immunised with a vaccine approved or recognised by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) will be required to undergo seven days’ home quarantine.
Others will be required to enter 14 days of managed isolation.
People who cannot be vaccinated including those under 12 or with a medical condition will be treated as vaccinated for the purposes of their travel.
States and territories will begin this program at different times given varying vaccination rates.
Australian travellers will be able to access an internationally recognised proof of vaccination document (Vaccine passport) in the coming weeks to prove their status.
The TGA will also recognise China’s Sinovac and Covishield produced in India as authorised vaccines to enter Australia, meaning Chinese and Indian students, tourists and business travellers can return.
More than 45,000 people are stuck overseas waiting to come home with the NSW government indicating it wants to welcome thousands into the country when borders reopen.
“It’s time to give Australians their lives back,” Mr Morrison said.
More to come.
Article published by https://karryon.com.au/.
TURKEY – THE RISING STAR OF MEDICAL TOURISM
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Turkey is one of the top destinations for medical tourism. Home to ancient and scenic natural wonders and famous for its healthcare infrastructure. Being close to Western Europe, Turkey has been medical tourism hotspot for many Europeans seeking affordable cosmetic surgery. Hair transplaint’s have continuously gaining popularity.
There are many reasons why Turkey has become the rising star of medical tourism. The travelling distances to Turkey from the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa, makes it possible for people to cut costs. But it isn’t just about that. Despite the lower costs, the quality of procedures offered is world-class.
Affordable Treatment Packages
The medical tourism industry recieved $1.5 billion from medical tourism in 2018, Turkey received around 700,000 medical tourists, according to the Turkish Health Minister. And it has been growing every year since, with the huge influx of medical tourists is that many people in their home countries are unable to afford the treatment. That is why they consider going to other countries to get the same procedure done.
The quality of the procedure offered isn’t sacrificed because of the lower cost. The cost is low because of the Turkish economy itself. The exchange rate and low cost of living make many things seem very cheap to foreigners.
Moreover, the minimum wage is lower in Turkey, which results in cheaper labour costs. This means that surgery in Turkey will cost less than it will, say, in Western Europe. Moreover, having cosmetic surgery or a hair transplant is not available on National Health Service (NHS) in the UK.
No Long Wait Lists
Once you book a treatment package in Turkey, you can get the procedure done in a matter of a day(s). However, in the UK, waitlists can be so long that you might have to wait for almost 2 years to get some procedures done. So, if you want to get treatment without further delays, you can get it in Turkey.
Many people also find the aspect of including the procedure in their vacation time quite appealing. Turkey is a popular tourist destination, which is why many people can relax after or before getting their treatment. If you’re also avoiding unnecessary questions about the surgery by your colleagues, it’s a good idea to get the treatment and recover for a while in Turkey.
Aussies are heading to Turkey to access cheap cosmetic surgery
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Claire Licciardo
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Danielle Gusmaroli in London writes this piece for the The Herald Sun as Aussies head over to Turkey to access cosmetic surgery for prices we haven’t seen for years! NipTuck Holidays is the only agency in Australia offering Turkey as a medical tourism destination with our Group Tour getting ready to officially announce for October 2023! Interested?
Australians craving a dramatic makeover are heading overseas to access cosmetic surgery for a fraction of the cost of procedures at home.
Turkey is fast establishing itself as the new medical tourism hub for Aussies craving bargain boobs, butts and bodies.
In a shift away from the one-time cosmetic surgery capital of Thailand, the southeastern European country has enjoyed a 400 per cent jump in bookings since international flights resumed in February 2022.
Much of the lure is price — procedures are up to 275 per cent cheaper than Australia — but there is also a belief among patients that the work is carried out in clean environments.
Venesa Sacco, 46, underwent her second cosmetic procedure in Istanbul in October — a breast lift and Brazilian butt lift (BBL).
“I feel and look totally different, I’m much more confident and like what I see in the mirror now – it’s like getting a haircut, you feel so much better afterwards,” Ms Sacco, from Caulfield, Melbourne, said.
She claims to have saved $74,450 on what she would have paid in Australia for her eight surgery procedures in two trips to Turkey over 15 months.
Her BBL cost $550 instead of $3000, her breast lift was $4000 versus $15,000, she paid $3000 for veneers that would have set her back $20,000 and her 360 liposuction was $6000 instead of $20,000.
“I’m addicted and I’m thinking of another round of liposuction … and maybe a facelift next year,” she said.
Lisa Consolmagno, 47, from Craigieburn, Melbourne, is part of a WhatsApp group with thousands of Australian members sharing information about plastic surgery in Turkey.
She flew into Istanbul a day after the deadly magnitude 7.8 earthquake for a tummy tuck, removal of old breast implants, breast lift and new implants.
“I went to Turkey because a lot of the men at the gym I go to have had veneers and hair transplants and told me to go,” she said.
Medical tourism firm Estetica Istanbul said Australian bookings had exploded from one or two a month to 10.
According to another firm, Surgery Savior, at least 10 per cent of its 70 aesthetic procedures and hair transplants a month now went to Australians.
“I keep seeing +61 (the Australian country code) flash up on my phone,” Surgery Savior chief executive Sarah Kasule said.
“After Covid, we got flooded with calls.
“There are five Australians in hotel rooms recovering from rhinoplasty as we speak, three of them girls from Sydney.”
Estetica Istanbul chief executive Mert Karakuzu will next month launch a social media advertising campaign to meet the growing demand from Australia.
“You can’t ignore the numbers, Australia has caught on to Turkey and we are now in discussions to advertise on Facebook,” he said.
AMA President Professor Steve Robson advised exercising caution when opting for plastic surgery overseas.
“We are lucky enough to have one of the best health systems in the world with highly trained doctors, nurses and other health professionals working in world-class facilities,” he said.
“Our outcomes are second to none and when, on the rare occasion, something goes wrong, patients have the security of knowing that the health system will be there to support them.”
Chair of the Communications Committee for the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Fabian Cortiñas shared concerns about the integrity of the industry.
“Safety should be the first priority when deciding to travel to a different country for an aesthetic surgical or non-surgical procedure,” he said.
Turkey aims to lure 1.5 million health tourists in 2023.
The government has certain expectations of clinics, including having an International Health Tourism Authorisation Certificate, regulated prices and surgical standards.
The story inThe Sun Herald: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/aussies-are-heading-to-turkey-to-access-cheap-cosmetic-surgery/news-story/6f1b2817d684d0f864dd01220f08bca6
TOP TIPS FOR OVERSEAS SURGERY
■ Choose a procedure that suits your age and body type. Risk and results of surgery are affected by age and weight
■ Ensure the plastic or cosmetic surgeon is experienced and medically board certified
■ Complications can occur during and after your procedure – check the level of after-care service provided and country’s safety guidelines. Each country has different safety guidelines and the safety levels will vary
■ If the procedure is performed in a hospital, verify the hospital is accredited or certified. Ask your surgeon for certification information and the name of the certifying body.
■ Ensure the surgical setting is safe and authorised by the country’s regulatory system and with trained personnel and emergency procedures in place.
■ Flights make changes in the body’s physiology, always arrive one or two days before the surgery, during those days take time for a physical consultation with your Doctor for final adjustments
■ Never underestimate the post operative period. Take enough time — at least a week — for a full recovery before your flight back.
Sun, sea and stitches: Why Britons (AND NOW AUSSIES) are flying to Turkey for cosmetic surgery!
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Medical tourists are flooding into Antalya for cut-price procedures. This story was written by journalist Tim Moore and published by The Telegraph in the UK on 10 April, 2023 as a piece of investigative journalism about the boom in medical tourism, where approx.150,000 British are travelling to Antalya and Istabul to have ‘work done’ just last year. last year.
He explains the rationale behind this phenomenon- is pretty basic: cosmetic work in Turkey comes cheap. Really cheap!!!! And investigates does it add up to a holiday bargain, or health-endangering hell?
I’ve only come to the CatchLife Aesthetic clinic in Antalya for a chat about Turkey’s medical-tourism boom, but the managing director can’t help blurting out a frank appraisal of my facial shortcomings….
‘We can resolve these things for you so easily…’
In a city with an estimated 1,500 cosmetic-treatment agencies, all squarely pitched at foreigners, you become swiftly hardened to plain-speaking, stigma-free assessments of your physical appearance, and the options for its clinical improvement. As I checked in at my hotel two days earlier, the receptionist looked up with a smile and said: ‘So you are here for dentist?’
More than 1.2 million foreigners visited Turkey for medical procedures in 2022, the vast majority cosmetic. The proportion of Britons among them is growing faster than any other nationality, with an estimated 150,000 of us travelling there to have ‘work done’ last year.
Medical tourism now brings £2 billion into Turkey every year, a vital injection of foreign money into a struggling economy currently burdened with 55 per cent inflation. Each medical tourist spends more than three times as much here as a standard tourist,’ says Cagatay Tekguzel, manager and owner of the Formedi clinic, which last year treated almost 1,000 UK patients in Antalya. At his clinic, the numbers of Brits are up more than 20 per cent year-on-year.
Hair transplantation and cosmetic dentistry top the treatment list, followed by laser-eye correction, weight-loss surgery (typically the removal of half your stomach) and the classic surgical makeovers: nose jobs, boob jobs, facelifts, eye lifts. Istanbul is home to the most clinics, with Antalya number two and rising fast. It’s where Katie Price comes to get her teeth done, and redone, and done again.
The rationale behind this phenomenon is pretty basic: cosmetic work in Turkey comes cheap. Incredibly cheap, generally a third of what you’d pay at a UK clinic, sometimes even less. A new nose for £2,500, a new pair of breasts for £3,000, a new head of hair for £1,700.
A full set of ‘Turkey teeth’, those dazzling, perfect pearly whites that are suddenly everywhere, starts at £3,200. And these prices are inclusive, typically covering four or five nights B&B in a decent hotel and all transfers as well as, often, a cheeky extra like facial filler or blemish removal at no extra cost. By comparison, rhinoplasty (a nose job) in the UK starts at around £6,200, breast implants about £7,000, a full 4,500-follicle hair transplant can cost up to £9,000 and a new set of teeth at least £12,000.
‘We’re now at a point where anyone can afford this stuff if they save up for a year or two,’ says Paul Adams, a 60-year-old from Manchester who’s in Antalya with his partner Joanne Murray. She is getting her teeth transformed; he had his own done here last September while she was getting a facelift, and got his eyes laser corrected the previous year. The pair have spent a shade over £20,000 in all for the three medical trips. Tens of thousands of Brits who could never have dreamt of cosmetic surgery are now having it done in Turkey. Some of them, in thrall to shape-shifting, twinkle-toothed social-media influencers and these irresistible prices, hardly know when to stop.
For better or worse, thanks to Turkish clinics cosmetic surgery has been democratised, normalised, stripped of taboo. Almost every patient I meet is happy to discuss the experience under their real names, often with gleeful gusto.
‘I mean, look at the state of me here!’ cries Murray, brandishing the clinic’s pre-facelift ‘before’ shot on her phone. It’s difficult to know how to respond, but by any assessment she now looks a good 15 years younger.
Mediterranean resort city of two million, Antalya has long depended on the tourist dollar. Hotel complexes and holiday apartment blocks stretch along the coast for more than 20 miles, bookending the minarets and steepling alleys of the old town.
Off season, when flights are at their cheapest and the milder weather is better suited to the gentle healing of post-op wounds, the streets are thronged with black-glazed luxury minibuses that speed patients to and from clinics, bearing clunky, sometimes unsettling names and slogans: Time Travel, CosmetoCity, Corpus Renew, Aesthetic Travel – We Love to Change You.
There’s this holiday atmosphere that means you just don’t get nervous before your procedure,’ says Murray. ‘You’ve been shopping for leather goods at the bazaar, sitting in the sun, eating lovely mezes – and then suddenly you’re on the operating table.’
Two middle-aged men stroll past, conversing amiably in London accents. Both have shaved heads that are stippled with innumerable red pinpricks: the legacy of recent hair transplants, in which up to 5,000 individual follicles are excised from the bits of your scalp that still have hair, then grafted into the bits that haven’t.
In the days ahead, I complete my cosmetic-treatment-aftermath bingo card on the streets of Antalya: noses neatly tented with splints and gauze, bandaged jowls, skin-closure butterfly strips poking beyond the perimeter of oversized sunglasses.
Tekguzel, a quietly engaging 31-year-old with a degree in English, meets me by the well-appointed Konyaalti seafront hotel where guests at his Formedi clinic are accommodated. His anatomical vocabulary betrays the clinic’s target nationality: he talks of ‘bums’, ‘tummies’ and ‘super-huge boobies’.
‘As a business, ours is unusual in medical terms,’ he says, thoughtfully. ‘No one really needs a new nose or a rounder bum. This is elective surgery requested by people who are not sick. When they arrive, they are healthy, and we call them clients. Then we operate, and they become patients.’
Just up the road, Tekguzel leads me through the Formedi’s glossy new expansion – a suite of five dental surgeries, furnished with expensive-looking equipment and executive leather. When it opens in a fortnight, he tells me, the clinic will be able to process 150 predominantly British ‘full-mouth’ patients a month, here for the signature Turkey-teeth set of 28 cubic zirconium crowns. It’s a £200,000 investment, he says. When I suggest that might take him a few years to recoup, he lets out a helpless giggle. ‘I think a few months!’
At the current Formedi clinic round the corner I’m introduced to a couple from West Yorkshire who’ve both just had the full-mouth treatment. Steven Rees, a Welsh-born tower crane operator, is 48 but has the smile of a much younger man.
I’m very, very happy,’ he says, flashing his new George Clooneys. ‘The procedure is pretty intense, 10 hours in the chair over two days, but they’ve been so gentle and professional.’
Intense indeed: the first stage involves filing all your teeth into slight points, allowing the crowns to fit over them. Whenever I look at those serrated, snowy mountains I’m reminded of a haunting photo posted by Katie Price midway through her most recent dental make-over, a crownless array of wide-set shark’s teeth.
Price, who has lost count of her boob jobs (she thinks it’s 12) and cheerfully admits to having injected so much Botox that it no longer works, might seem an improbable poster girl for Turkey’s aesthetic industry. Yet the Mono Clinic in Izmir, where she underwent full-body liposuction and a face and brow lift in 2021, devotes a whole proud page to her on its website.
‘Katie Price really knows no bounds when it comes to aesthetics,’ it gushes. ‘If you want to have an aesthetic body and face like Katie Price, you can contact us immediately.’
Dr Nilesh Parmar, a leading UK dental-implant surgeon, says that after so many veneers and crowns Price would now have ‘little or no tooth tissue remaining’, and it’s hard to imagine any reputable UK dentist taking her on as a patient.
But the Smile Team clinic in Antalya is more than happy to falteringly declare: ‘While the dentist had done Katie Price teeth she did her vacation in Turkey at the same time. So why wouldn’t you?’
For certain UK clients, it’s not just that Turkey is cheap. They come here because some Turkish clinics will push the boundaries that little bit further than their more conservative – or responsible – UK counterparts. Bigger implants, riskier procedures, trend-driven looks that might be tricky to undo once facial fashions move on. Get yourself a Meghan Markle ski-slope nose, and be prepared to live with it once the pixie look falls from favour, as major rhinoplasty is cosmetically irreversible.
Antalya, I discover, attracts three types of British patient. Some are here for a one-off, midlife makeover: a facelift, new teeth, hair implants. Others are returning to correct the collateral consequences of a previous procedure – most typically those who have shed a huge amount of weight following stomach-reduction surgery and need loose skin removed.
And a few are on a never-ending journey of reinvention, one made possible by Turkey’s low prices and its rather more libertarian approach to customer choice.
‘Germans, French, Swiss people want minimal procedures,’ says Dr Onur Ogan, the surgeon who performed Joanne Murray’s facelift. ‘They don’t want people to know they have had plastic surgery. It is the UK patients who ask for exaggerated results, the Love Island and Kardashian stuff, big lips, big boobs, big bums. They are happy to tell people they have had surgery, happy to show it on social media.’
For some of us, less is never more. This is conspicuous consumption distilled to its very essence.
At the MediFace clinic near Lara Beach I meet Amanda Lindsay, a 48-year-old north Londoner who’s been in for a slanted eye-lift that will – once the bandages are off – endow that on-trend, almond-shaped cat-eye look (yes, Katie Price has had it done).
Lindsay is an old hand: five years ago she underwent a full ‘mummy makeover’ (breast lift, buttock lift, tummy tuck) in the Dominican Republic. ‘If you’re not paying UK prices, plastic surgery is like going down the corner shop. I’m getting my teeth done next.’ I can see how it happens. You redecorate one room in your house, and suddenly the rest of it looks a bit shabby.
In fact, there’s a fourth type of UK patient.
Another British MediFace client, who requests anonymity, has come to Antalya for revision work – broadening her nasal airways after a botched Harley Street nose job left her struggling to breathe. ‘That cost me £5,000 and it’s been a nightmare. The consultation process here is so much more in-depth and open.’
A recently retired nurse, also endured expensive disappointments at private clinics in the UK. ‘We’ve both spent thousands having our teeth sorted back at home, and it never seemed to work out,’ says Rees. ‘I came here with a dead tooth and a composite that was falling out.’
The requisite remedial work almost doubled the cost of their Turkey teeth to £5,000 each – Joanna needed four implants and a bone graft into her jaw. But those implants alone, she says, would have cost more in the UK than ‘getting my whole mouth done here’.
Rees and Ludbrook have rationalised the expense as a blow-out holiday: ‘I mean we’re having a nice winter break in the sun here anyway, but £10,000 is what we might have dropped on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Cancún.
Dr Ebru Yuceer, who spent those 10 hours reinventing Rees’s smile, emits quiet sincerity and an evident passion for her work. ‘I have small, careful hands, good at piano and painting when I was at school. Detail is my obsession: I wanted a career in precision.’
She has been working on foreign mouths in Konyaalti for 12 years, and still gets a kick from the expressions of delighted disbelief that typically accompany the first post-treatment looks in her mirror. ‘I get well paid, sure, but happy patients are the best salary.’
As the petite 35-year-old earnestly holds forth, flanked by two beaming examples of this professional perk, I realise that bargain prices and a holiday environment aren’t quite the whole story. The Turkish medical-tourism boom is also founded on the close personal relationships that good clinics foster with their patients, and more fundamentally on the dependable quality of their work.
Turkey can draw on a long heritage of cosmetic surgery: one pioneering 15th-century medical textbook shows that Ottoman doctors were conducting eye lifts and even moob-reduction procedures 600 years ago.
Since the medical-tourism boom got going 20 years back, Antalya’s cosmetic dentists and surgeons have built on this tradition, and in great numbers. They’re craftsmen who have become extremely good at what they do, honing their very particular skills through years of specialised repetition on thousands of patients.
Practice has made perfect. It’s a conclusion reinforced when I meet a bariatric surgeon who makes 25 British stomachs smaller every month, and a rhinoplasty supremo who reshapes twice as many noses over the same period. There are hair doctors in this city with more than 4,000 transplants to their name, surely a profound reassurance to any patient waiting to have the same number of tiny holes cut in his head.
Their cosmetic counterparts in the UK, with nothing like this throughput of patients, can rarely accrue such a depth of experience.
Paul Adams had both his eyes laser-corrected at an Istanbul clinic in under an hour. ‘It was like pulling a pint for him [the surgeon] because he’s done it so many times.’ A year since he binned his bifocals, Adams is still merrily amazed. ‘It was under £2,500 for both eyes, and that included a five-star hotel. At home I’d been quoted £3,000 per eye.’
Cagatay Tekguzel maintains that his industry is rooted in the Turkish people’s inherent urge to care for those in need – though this seems better evidenced by the glossy, well-fed stray cats of Antalya than bald foreigners with tiny new scars all over their heads.
Yet there’s no doubt that patient/clinic communications are nurtured to a degree unimaginable in Britain, before and long after surgery. All the doctors I meet scroll happily through WhatsApp messages they’ve been responding to around the clock, fielding queries from prospective future clients, addressing concerns about wound care from those recently treated, exchanging jolly banter with patients they haven’t seen in the flesh for years.
Every clinic employs a roster of multilingual ‘patient co-ordinators’, who talk clients through their procedures and detail the aftercare, offering a supportive word here, holding a hand there. (Sometimes their English lets them down: one coordinator tells me of the time he misremembered the word ‘sedation’, and informed a wide-eyed female patient that the doctor would be treating her ‘under seduction’.)
The personal touch is evident from the very start. ‘At the airport there was a driver with my name on a card,’ says Borce Drapic, a Macedonian-born German who’s just had a hair transplant at the MediFace clinic. ‘He came over and gave me a big hug!’
CatchLife patient coordinator Tunahan Özelçi tells me that when clients fly home, tears are commonplace. ‘They cry, we cry – we’ve built such a strong relationship.’
In truth, this overflow of TLC is run through with a stream of hard commercialism.
As the patients I speak to confirm, these clinics now source their clientele almost entirely via social media: reviews, video clips and the ubiquitous before-and-after shots that previous customers post on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok gather traction, abetted by the clinic’s own carefully curated accounts (CatchLife employs a three-man ‘digital team’). It’s a business where word of mouth has given way to photo of face.
In the scramble for positive online feedback, clinics can’t afford to have patients grumbling about poor stitching or infected wounds, let alone grumpy doctors and uninterested staff. Formedi, CatchLife and MediFace all offer ‘free revision’ guarantees: a pledge to put things right if they go wrong after your return, with the patient only liable for the cost of a return flight to Antalya.
‘It can take a year to fully recover from surgery,’ says Tekguzel, ‘and because our patients live abroad they need extra reassurance in case stitches tear or implants sink down or things like that.’
These concerns may also help explain why most of the clinics I visit are now edging further towards low-risk, high-gain procedures: hair transplants and Turkey teeth make great before-and-after material, and rarely engender the sort of complications that can badly compromise your online PR.
Cagatay Tekguzel: ‘When they arrive, they are healthy, and we call them clients. Then we operate, and they become patients.’
Surgery is always a roll of the dice. Studies show that post-operative sepsis affects just over one per cent of patients, with a mortality rate approaching 30 per cent. Any procedure involving liposuction – the removal (and typically relocation) of subcutaneous fat – comes freighted with the additional danger of fat droplets entering the bloodstream, thereby risking lethal clots.
Every clinician I talk to winces slightly at the very mention of BBLs – Brazilian butt lifts, the Kardashian-inspired treatment du jour that creates beach-ball buttocks through the heavy use of ‘lipo’. (The CatchLife team tell me the procedure is increasingly requested by male clients: ‘They read surveys that tell them women always look at men’s bums before their faces.’)
The doctors seem reluctant to detail their evident reservations, and the statistics tell me why: an extensive study concluded that one in 3,000 BBL procedures have a fatal outcome. The odds might be low, but with 150,000 UK medical tourists a year, they still equate to a grim toll of tragedies.
Three British women have died as a result of complications arising from BBLs undertaken in Turkey; Abimbola Bamgbose, a 38-year-old social worker from Dartford, succumbed to peritonitis in August 2020 after undergoing liposuction and BBL surgery at Mono Cosmetic in Izmir – a clinic that has reconfigured Katie Price. Since 2019, according to the Foreign Office, a total of 22 Britons have lost their lives following medical-tourism visits to the country.
After a rash of UK tabloid horror stories, in 2018 the Turkish health ministry imposed regulations requiring clinics that treat international patients to go through a licensing procedure which, I am repeatedly assured, is both stringent and very expensive.
The cowboy clinics are long gone, I’m told, and standards are now up with any in Western Europe. Every single clinic and hospital I visit in Antalya – both public and private – is spotless and arrestingly well equipped. Most exude the air of an upmarket chain hotel; one even offers valet parking. Doctor after doctor insists that mortality rates for cosmetic procedures are no higher in Turkey than elsewhere.
But despite these reassurances, the undoubted skill of the surgeons and dentists and the tireless empathy of their patient coordinators, there’s no escaping the fact that coming out here for cosmetic work is still a pretty ballsy undertaking. You’re 2,000 miles from home and someone you’ve only previously met on WhatsApp is going to file down every tooth in your head, or snip off half your stomach. They might be brilliantly dextrous, but they might also be exhausted, running on fumes in their fourth op of the day.
And though Antalya never feels in any way unsafe, there’s a vague but pervasive banana-republic vibe that makes a slightly jarring fit with complex medical procedures. Stray dogs, heady smells, nervous conscripts with big machine guns. Dusty old men hauling handcarts full of rubbish down potholed alleys. Almost everyone smokes, though at least the doctors go outside to do it. Nobody seems to accept credit cards, and Turkey’s rampant inflation stuffs your pockets with wads of grubby notes, some worth less than 20p.
Most clinics demand full upfront payment in cash – euros or sterling only.
‘I mean, who deals in cash these days?’ says Steven Rees. ‘When you hand it over, a part of you can’t help thinking it’s a scam, that you’ll come back for the treatment and the clinic’s vanished.’ Paul Adams had to fly out with £12,000 in cash, for his teeth and his partner’s facelift.
‘I was terrified, I thought I might get mugged on the plane! Half the passengers were out here for treatments – there must have been £200,000 on that flight.’
I suppose you just have to keep reminding yourself that there are several reasons why this work is so cheap, and a few of them are a bit murky.
‘In a funny way, I think that’s one of the reasons people can seem a bit jealous,’ says Joanne Murray. ‘It’s not just that we look so much younger, it’s that we’ve had the gumption, the bravery, to come out here and do this.’
Back at Antalya airport I wander through ranks of the walking wounded, scarred scalps, splinted noses, bandaged necks.
There are lots of headscarves, caps and enormous sunglasses. A woman in a white-and- gold tracksuit sits down very gingerly, grimacing as flesh hits hard plastic. Over at the duty-free queue, a middle-aged man extracts £20 notes from a big roll to pay for two cartons of cigarettes. He cracks a smile at the cashier, and I deduce it’s the remaining cash balance from his new Turkey teeth.
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Bali’s new hospital is opening soon!
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Medical tourism in Bali
The beautiful holiday island of Bali is set to be a medical tourism destination new international hospital built by the Indonesian Ministry of State-owned Enterprises in partnership with the US-owned Mayo Clinic. NipTuck Holidays sources say Sanur International Hospital, the new world-class international 300-bed hospital, is on track for completion in this year with the concept is to position Bali as a world-leading health tourism destination!
The Sanur International Hospital is bringing in consultants from the Mayo Clinic and international doctors and surgeons who have graduated and practised abroad, with the focus on South Korea.
Currently the legislation makes it hard for doctors and other medical professionals who have trained outside of Indonesia to come to work in the country, however the recruitment process is underway for specialist doctors and that only the best candidates will be chosen.
The Governor of Bali said, “the aim is to position quality, safety, and patient experience at the highest international standards.” He told the audience that the whole project is being designed in partnership with the NipTuck Holidays partners Mayo Clinic, the best hospital in the US. The partnership is developing not only the hospital building itself but working to create the best governance, management, and workplace culture possible.
The international hospital is being built on a former golf course on the coast of Bali near Sanur, close to Grand Inna Bali Beach Resort. The area is on the quiet east coast with white sand beaches and is popular with retirees and elderly tourists.
The hospital grounds merge with the famous Bali Beach Grand Inna Hotel, a new meeting and exhibition center, and a living pharmacy featuring an ethnomedical botanical garden to draw upon traditional Balinese medical practices as complementary therapy to the modern practices within the hospital. There will also be a commercial center for health, wellness, and medical-related medium, small, and micro-enterprises to support the local economy further.
While Bali has become synonymous with wellness travel, there will be an even greater focus on medical, health, and wellness tourism and together with NipTuck Holidays to promote Bali as a medical tourism destination.