BRAZEN DOCTOR STILL PRACTISING UTTERLY
»»Surgeon who performed bum lift that killed Brit Leah boasts of doing 500 ops since
THE surgeon who performed fatal bum surgery on a British mum has confessed he shouldn’t have operated on her.
But Dr Ali Uckan bragged how he had carried out the same operation 500 times since Leah Cambridge died – and tried to persuade me to go under the knife.
Leah, 29, suffered three heart attacks after a fat cell blocked an artery when the self-styled celebrity surgeon gave her a highly risky Brazilian bum lift at his Turkish clinic.
He was branded a coward for refusing to give evidence at Leah’s inquest, despite being asked eight times by the coroner to take the stand.
But the Sunday Mirror tracked him down at his clinic in Izmir, just 20 minutes from the hospital where beautician
Leah, from Leeds, had the deadly op in summer 2018.
I posed as a potential patient and, in a horrifying exchange, callous Dr Uckan admitted the mum-of-three had not been a suitable candidate for the surgery.
But he then tried to persuade me to have a bum lift at a knockdown price of £2,500, telling me: “You need some feminine curves.”
He added: “The patient who died was not that suitable for BBL, I can clearly see.
“She lost a lot of weight and her skin was not good, very soft, so I couldn’t find the right vein. Now I am just filtering the patients more than I used to do.
“I felt awful, but life is going on. Since then, I have done about 500. So far, I have no problems with the BBLs. About 80 per cent (of patients) are from the UK.
“Flying on a plane is much riskier than BBL, and the plane could crash. In terms of statistics, the chances of a plane crash is higher than dying with BBL.” In fact, I’d be at least 1,500 times less likely to die in a plane crash than I would during a Brazilian bum lift op. The mortality rate is estimated to be more than one in 3,000 – making it one of the most deadly cosmetic procedures.
It’s so dangerous senior coroner Kevin McLoughlin called for it to be banned following Leah’s inquest. He recorded a narrative verdict and ruled that she died after not being fully warned of the risks of the op.
He added: “Against this backdrop, those involved in facilitating or conducting BBL procedures must decide whether it’s safe to continue to do so.
“In my judgement, this decision should be made on ethical grounds, rather than business ones.”
If Dr Uckan had been practising in the UK, he could have faced a corporate manslaughter probe for failing in his duty of care to Leah. Her family could also have launched a medical negligence claim in the civil courts – poten
Life is going on... flying is riskier than BBL
DR UCKAN ON CARRYING ON AFTER LEAH’S DEATH