An alarming list of fatalities after cosmetic surgery in Turkey already exists, and now it’s emerged that these botched procedures are the direct cause of a secondary wave of deaths by suicide.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that 24-year-old French business student Mathieu Vigier Latour took his own life after having botched beard transplant surgery in Turkey in March this year.
Mathieu died by suicide three months after his €1,300 (£1,082) transplant, which had been done by an estate agent posing as a surgeon, leaving him in constant pain and with irregularly shaped facial hair, growing at an unnatural angle.
While there is a seemingly never-ending list of patients left with disfigurements or serious infections after being lured to Turkey by rock bottom prices for cosmetic ‘work’, Mathieu’s case highlights a worrying pattern of suicides among those whose procedures go wrong.
The devastation caused by a botched procedure is no doubt exacerbated in those who were mentally vulnerable to begin with – with many battling body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), which causes sufferers to become fixated on perceived flaws in their physical appearance.
Among their number is Jack Castell, a 24-year-old British man with Asperger’s and BDD, who took his own life after being left with heavy scarring and in immense pain after multiple surgeries in Istanbul.
Meanwhile, the family of Leeds woman Leah Cambridge – who died on the operating table during a Brazilian Butt Lift – suffered a double tragedy when her devastated father took his own life in the wake of her death.
Mathieu Vigier Latour after his botched hair transplant in Istanbul
Leah Cambridge (right) from Leeds, died on the operating table in 2018 after a Brazilian bum lift surgery. Her father (left) passed away three years after. A senior coroner ruled: ‘This was a suicide attributed in part to the death of his daughter who died in surgery in Turkey’
Jack Castell, 24, before he had multiple plastic surgeries on his face in Turkey
Mathieu Vigier Latour’s father Jacques told local broadcaster BFM TV: ‘When it started to grow out, it looked like a hedgehog, it was unmanageable.
‘He was suffering… He was in pain and he couldn’t sleep,’ he added, saying his son suffered from ‘post traumatic shock’, felt trapped and ‘couldn’t get out’.
This year The Times reported on the death, also apparently by suicide, of Jack Castell, 24, after he had multiple plastic surgeries on his face in Turkey.
Jack’s family said he had having suffered with BDD for years.
In late 2022 he departed for a series of operations including a jaw reduction, chin reduction, lower face lift, nose and hairline lowering with eye widening.
His father, Tim, begged him not to go.
‘I just said to him, ‘Jack, you don’t need any of this’. I said: ‘You’re beautiful. You’re an absolutely stunning looking man’,’ he recalled.
Jack returned from his operation with heavy scarring and in immense pain which left him relying on strong painkillers.
In a message to his father, he wrote: ‘I should have listened to you. I am sorry I feel I’ve made a bad mistake,’ he said.
The young man, described by his father as being ‘loving and kind’ was found dead after taking an overdose on June 7 that year.
The treatment left his beard irregularly shaped and growing at an unnatural angle
The student, seen before the operation, took his own life after the botched procedure
Mr Castell said his son was an easy victim for clinics eager to sell a host of procedures as the solution to the perceived problems with his appearance.
‘Due to his Asperger’s and also suffering from body dysmorphia, he was a soft target and easy prey. He was 24 but was still child-like in many ways,’ he said.
The trauma of botched surgery also reverberates through families, as the terrible case of Leah Cambridge shows.
Ms Cambridge was just 29 when she suffered a fatal blood clot during a £6,500 Brazilian butt lift (BBL) surgery in Turkey back in 2018.
The mother-of-three, from Leeds, described as being ‘paranoid about her body’, paid in cash for the procedure after being inspired by pictures on Instagram.
A BBL is a procedure where fat is extracted from areas around the waist and injected into the buttocks with aim of giving a curvier figure.
But Leah suffered a fatal complication where this fat was accidentally injected into a vein causing her to have three heart attacks on the operating table and then died.
However, the tragedy didn’t end there.
Leah Cambridge, 29, passed away after a cosmetic operation to lift her bottom in 2018. Doctors and nurses at the Turkish clinic were unable to save her
Her father, Craig, 51, was found dead at his home in April by suicide 2021 after he ‘spiralled downwards’ following the death of his daughter.
An inquest, held in 2022, heard how the personal trainer had never been able to get past the loss of Leah being prescribed anti-depressants and also having a problem with alcohol following her death.
Returning a verdict of suicide senior coroner Kevin McLoughlin said at the time: ‘Normally I am quite detached and hard-hearted about inquests, but when I saw another tragedy had befallen your family, I felt quite grievous.’
He added: ‘I am intending to send it to the medical authorities in Turkey to make them aware of how a tragedy manifests itself years later.’
Last month a woman named as Nina — who wished to remain anonymous — who suffered from mental health problems told The Times that a nose job in Turkey had left her feeling ‘suicidal’ and ‘the most unwell I’d ever been’.
Nina, like Jack, suffered BDD. The condition should normally exclude patients from surgery — and should be screened for carefully by a doctor prior to surgery.
Yet many clinics in Turkey sign patients up after little more than a WhatsApp or Instagram exchange.
Nina, who had already had one nose job in the UK prior to her diagnosis, sought another in 2019 — and flew to Turkey alone, despite her family objecting.
Although the operation went as planned, Nina’s mental health plummeted.
‘After Turkey, the recovery was the most unwell I’d ever been. I was suicidal and I was just totally focused on getting more surgery to fix the next thing, to fix what I felt they had changed in a way that I didn’t like.
‘I was so hung up on that … I’m not in that place any more, I now accept that further surgery isn’t the solution,’ she added.
According Turkish state-owned healthcare body, USHAS, in 2023 over 1.5 million people went to the country for cosmetic surgery.
Kitty Wallace, head of operations at the BDD Foundation, told The Times she felt there needed to be improved regulation of cosmetic surgery internationally.
She said: ‘Rigorous mental health and BDD screening for patients and an end to Turkish surgeons preying on young adults in Britain without sufficient care for their physical and mental wellbeing.’
