Plastic surgery tourism?

Lipotourism is booming in the Dominican Republic. More than 1,000 Americans have surgery there every year. And while many have success, others find that their bargain basement surgery may come with hidden, even life-threatening costs.

Dr. Scott Spear is president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. 

Dr. Scott Spear: “It’s really is scary to me that someone would get on an airplane and fly to a foreign country where there's no resort to help if there's a problem.”

Last May, Sonia from Boston flew to a clinic in the Dominican Republic after being promised a great deal.  She says her problems began even before the surgery was over. She says she woke up twice during the surgery.

Sonia: “During the surgery. I literally felt their hands inside my stomach.”

When Sonia came to she says she was shaking uncontrollably and numb. She realized she was in trouble. An infection began destroying the skin around her incision. She turned to plastic surgeon Dr. Loren Borud for help. Borud says the Dominican doctor performed more surgery than Sonia's body could handle.

Dr. Loren Bourd: “Anyone who does that operation should know those technical points. This should never happen. Should never happen.”

Less than three months later, lipotourists and best friends Allyn and Yvonne checked into a Dominican plastic surgery clinic for their surgical overhaul. Were they making the right decision? That question was soon answered for both women.

Allyn wound up in a hospital in Miami, battling a massive infection. It turns out Allyn's surgeon had left her belly button floating inside her stomach instead of reattaching it. It deteriorated, causing an infection.

Meanwhile, her friend Yvonne was admitted to a hospital in New York City with a rare bacteria in her blood.

Dr. Tornambe: “The infection that she had when she came back from her initial surgery could have killed her.”

They weren't the only lipotourists who returned to the United States with life threatening complications. Last year U.S. health officials identified an unusual and virulent bacteria in 16 women who'd had plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic. The centers for disease control warned doctors all over the country to be on the lookout. And that prompted New York City's Health Department to take a dramatic step, issuing a warning for people not to travel to the Dominican Republic for cosmetic surgery.

But not everyone heard or listened to that warning. Maria Morel flew from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic last November and checked into a clinic for her long awaited surgery. But when Maria called her husband from a recovery room at the clinic he said something seemed seriously wrong with her breathing.

Her family says Maria asked to see a lung specialist. Instead they say she got an oxygen tank. Six days later, Maria was dead.

Trabys, her eldest daughter, still can't make sense of it and Jose, her husband of 28 years is haunted by what was done to his wife. Within two weeks of Maria's death, the Morel family marched to the prosecutor's office in Santo Domingo and demanded the doctor be investigated.

The doctor is Edgar Contreras, and he's the same doctor who operated on Sonia from Boston, Allyn from Miami and Yvonne from New York. He's a celebrity in the Dominican Republic, as famous for his work on beauty queens as he is for his medical record. It turns out Maria Morel was not the first person to die after visiting his clinic.

In 1998 one of his patients, a woman from Puerto Rico died from multiple complications after surgery. Six months later, another woman died of a heart attack brought on by the strain of too much surgery.

The cases caused a media frenzy, and in 1999 Dr.Contreras was charged with two counts of involuntary homicide even though he said the women died of natural causes. The cases have yet to come to trial and the doors of his clinic have stayed open for business to unsuspecting patients like Maria Morel, Allyn, Sonia and Yvonne.

We wanted to find out more about Dr. Contreras and the services he offers lipotourists, so we made an appointment.

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