Mum died hours after weight loss surgery in Turkey

A 54-year-old woman died after a gastric sleeve operation in Turkey, an inquest heard.

Janet Lynne Savage, from Gwynedd, had contacted a travel company after deciding she wanted to lose three stone.

But the driving examiner, from Penrhosgarnedd near Bangor, was taken to an intensive care unit and could not be saved after problems developed during the procedure which took place at a private hospital.

She was found to have died from acute bleeding loss due to injury to her abdominal aorta, which had an attempted repair, due to gastric sleeve surgery, said a senior coroner at the inquest into her death, held in Caernarfon.

Mrs Savage had contacted a firm called Reginis Health Travel, based in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, which arranges flights, hotels, surgical and non-surgical procedures at the private Ozel Rich Hospital in Kiziltoprak in southern Turkey.

A statement by Alison Ergun, Reginis' client service administrator, was read out at the inquest by senior coroner for north-west Wales, Kate Robertson.

In the statement, Ms Ergun said Mrs Savage told her in an exchange of Facebook messages in July last year that she was taking Ozempic [a medicine designed to treat people with type 2 diabetes] and wanted to lose three stone.

Mrs Savage was "worried" about the surgeon and asked for information about him, said Ms Ergun. The operation was arranged for the hospital in Anatalya for August 5 last year after the women spoke over WhatsApp.

Ms Ergun said she was then informed by her operations manager that there had been "complications", and that Mrs Savage had been taken to intensive care after she had stopped breathing. She died the next day, at 7.45am on August 6.

Mrs Savage's family arrived in Antalya later that day, said Ms Ergun, who went with them to the hospital. Via a translator Mrs Savage's relatives were told she'd had a heart attack and there had been "serious internal bleeding".

Ms Ergun said the family "thanked" her for her efforts and she escorted them back to the airport afterwards. The inquest also heard from a hospital doctor who told how Mrs Savage had had a "major artery trauma" which was repaired and blood was replaced. She then developed an arrest during the surgery, said the doctor.

"Despite all the interventions the patient was confirmed as having passed away," said Dr Ramazan Azar in a statement. The coroner ordered a post-mortem examination after Mrs Savage's body was returned to the UK.

It was conducted at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd by Dr Muhammed Aslam, a consultant histopathologist who proposed that the medical cause of death was acute blood loss due to an injured abdominal aorta which had been repaired.

Coroner Mrs Robertson found that during the gastric sleeve operation on August 5, "it appears a major artery trauma occurred. The aorta was repaired but she went into arrest."

Cardio pulmonary resuscitation was carried out but Mrs Savage died on August 6. The cause of death was given as acute blood loss due to injury to the abdominal aorta with repair due to gastric sleeve surgery.