Joe Thornley, a 25-year-old British who had been working during the season in Ibiza, has died from a gastric sleeve operation in a clinic in Turkey. The young man, who according to his relatives in statements reported by The Sun newspaper, “was not happy with his weight,” decided to undergo an operation in a clinic in Istanbul dedicated to this type of intervention
The British, who lived in Ibiza for several months because he was working seasonally, traveled to Turkey without communicating the decision he had taken to his parents until the day before flying to the Turkish capital.
His parents, moreover, after Thornley’s death, did not receive the news until 24 hours after the death had occurred. “He texted me the day of the surgery to tell me he was in pain, but we never heard from him again after that,” the mother states. “I thought his phone was off or that he was sleeping,” she adds.
It was the British police who broke the news to his parents. The Turkish health center staff did not have the contact details of his next of kin, so they contacted the British force so that they could contact them and pass on the news.
Subsequently, the police provided them with the number of Thornley’s doctor in Turkey. “The doctor said he had low blood pressure. He had a heart attack, cardiac arrest,” Nick, the young Briton’s father, explains for his part. “We assumed his body had failed,” he continues. When the young man’s body arrived in the UK and the autopsy was performed, they found that the information provided by the Turkish doctor “was irrelevant.” and that the cause of death was internal bleeding caused during the operation.
The odyssey of repatriating the body
“It was a struggle to return Joe’s body home,” the mother recounts. “We had to talk to the British consulate and then pay the funeral home expenses in Turkey. It was horrible.” , he sentences. “It might cost you 3,000 pounds (about 3,400 euros) to go there, but if you die, it easily costs you between 12,000 and 15,000 pounds (between 13,000 and 17,000 euros) if you take into account the repatriation of the body and the funeral,” he details.
Thornley’s case, which has been made public from a documentary from which The Sun newspaper collects several statements, is one of the many cases of British citizens who, for aesthetic reasons, travel to countries where operations of this kind are offered at much lower prices than in the United Kingdom.
The documentary piece, moreover, reveals that some clinics in Turkey use archive images along with reviews by users full of praise, which calls into question the credibility of these centers.
A couple of friends who lived with Thornley for six months in Ibiza, and whose statements are also included in the documentary, warned the young British man not to undergo the weight loss operation and insisted, in vain, of the risks of undergoing surgery abroad.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.