The parents of 26-year-old Khelisyah Ashamu, who died after undergoing low-cost weight loss surgery in Turkey, have been awarded £858,000 in compensation from a UK-operated “medical tourism” company.

Ashamu travelled to Izmir, a Turkish city known for its modern, Western-oriented feel and the third most populous after Ankara and Istanbul, in February 2019. She booked a £3,300 package to undergo a gastric bypass procedure, having openly discussed her struggles with weight and her dissatisfaction with the appearance of her stomach following a Caesarean section.

Ashamu enlisted the services of ‘Get Slim’, a medical tourism agency run by British expatriates, paying several thousand pounds for their surgery and accommodation package. The gastric bypass operation typically promotes weight loss by separating the upper part of the stomach from the lower, connecting the upper part directly to the small intestine, and forming a small, egg-sized stomach pouch to limit food intake and reduce calorie absorption.

However, after her surgery on 1 February, Ashamu was left in severe pain that could not be ignored. On 3 February, she underwent exploratory follow-up surgery. In the days that followed, her condition deteriorated so drastically that she was admitted to intensive care. Despite the seriousness of her condition, the judge, Ms Justice Obi, noted that no monitoring was recorded.

Her father urgently flew to Turkey, and although he was initially told she was responding to treatment, a brain surgeon later confirmed she was brain dead. Barrister Dominique Smith told the court:

"Shortly after this, the deceased’s ventilation was ended, and the deceased died…The deceased’s life support was withdrawn without the claimants’ knowledge and without [her father] being present in the hospital…He arrived at the hospital, after previously returning to his accommodation, on 9th February 2019, to be told by hospital staff that the deceased was in a body bag in the morgue."

The mother-of-one tragically suffered a cardiac arrest and died in a Turkish hospital on 9 February 2019. A coroner later recorded her cause of death as a lack of blood flow to the intestines, known as gastrointestinal ischaemia, resulting from complications of her surgery.

Ashamu’s grieving parents, Toyin and Oyebanji Ashamu, launched a High Court claim against Tracey Ozdemir, the organiser of Get Slim’s “package travel contract”. Ozdemir initially denied responsibility, but the court found that as organiser of the travel package, which Smith successfully argued “included the surgery itself”, she was liable for the ‘proper performance’ of the surgery and aftercare.

After hearing expert evidence, the judge accepted that Ashamu, an IT professional from Romford, had received “inadequate post-operative monitoring and airway care” following her second operation. The judge also stated that Ozdemir had offered “surgical packages and used the language ‘our surgeon’”, which she ruled was “inconsistent with the role of a mere introducer” and instead amounted to an “organiser” of “medical tourism”. As a result, the judge awarded £858,000 in damages to Ashamu’s family, which Ozdemir did not contest.

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In court, Judge Obi told the family after announcing the damages: “I recognise how difficult these proceedings must have been for you and I offer my sincere condolences for the loss of your daughter. Of course, nothing this court can do can lessen that loss for you and your family, but I hope the conclusion of these proceedings will bring some measure of consolation.”

A claim against the Turkish medics was not pursued.