‘I was so impressed with my daughter’s boob job, I had one done myself’

OLDER women are having breast enlargements as Australian surgeons cut their prices to compete with medical tourism packages in Asia.

A happy grandmother ... Deborah Scheithe with her husband David. She was so impressed by her daughter’s breast enlargement she joined the growing army of Australian women having cosmetic surgery.

WOMEN in their fifties and even their seventies are having breast enlargements as Australian surgeons cut their prices to compete with medical tourism packages in Asia.

Fifty-year-old Deborah Scheithe was so impressed by her daughter’s breast enlargement she became part of the growing army of Australian women having cosmetic surgery.

The Tumut grandmother turned fifty last year and says felt she had “lost a lot of fullness and wanted some of my womanhood back”.

“My daughter had surgery done the year before and I was so impressed I had mine done,” she says.

She says she was very surprised at how cheap this type or surgery had become.

Competition from overseas medical tourism has driven down the price of breast enhancement surgery to just $6,000 in Australia, half the normal cost and close to medical tourism prices in Thailand.

In Thailand the surgery alone costs around $3,300 but when flights and a ten day stay in a luxury hotel are added it costs $5,000.

The main client base for breast enlargement are women in their early twenties and those aged 30-45 trying to regain shape after pregnancy, says Cosmetic Institute’s managing director David Segal.

But increasingly older women are going under the knife and one cosmetic surgery company told News Corp this week they had recently performed breast surgery and a tummy tuck on a 70 year old who found herself single again.

News_Image_File: Before surgery. .. Deborah Scheithe had cosmetic surgery. News_Image_File: After surgery ... Deborah Scheithe was happy with the results.

Health fund NIB’s entrance into the medical tourism market earlier this year has added to the price pressure on local surgeons who say they have suffered a decline in demand since the Global Financial Crisis.

Medical tourism business CosMediTour which organises 100 breast implants a month in Thailand last week began offering discount breast enlargements on the Gold Coast.

Women can get the surgery alone for $6,880 or pay $7,900 and get a nine night stay in Surfers Paradise or Broadbeach as part of the package.

The Parramatta based Cosmetic Institute which says it is doing 70 breast augmentations a week has just opened a new Bondi clinic to cope with growing demand.

It is charging $5,990 for breast augmentation performed by a cosmetic surgeon and spokesman David Segal says it can be done because the business has achieved economies of scale.

“Others are charging $10,000 for a procedure that takes 45 minutes,” he says.

It is estimated around 15,000 Australians travel overseas to places like Thailand every year for surgery to avoid the high costs in Australia.

Mr Segal says 3,000 patients have used his discount Parramatta clinic in the last two years.

Australian Society Plastic Surgeons president Dr Tony Kayne says he is concerned the advent of medical tourism has trivialised the business of cosmetic surgery and many women are not aware of the risks it entails.

News_Rich_Media: Deborah's story

“We’re concerned about whether these people are getting safe surgery we are seeing more and more unhappy customers coming back from overseas,” he said.

The society is in the process of collecting a data base of adverse events, he said.

A spokesman for health fund NIB said it had launched the nib Options medical tourism business to capitalise on the growing consumer demand for cosmetic and major dental treatment.

“The opening of new facilities not just in Australia but also abroad only highlights the consumer interest for high quality treatment. This also translates into a win for consumers, as competition ultimately delivers improved price and better outcomes in terms of service and quality,” he said.

The nation’s medicines watchdog this week suspended the registration of Cereform silicone gel-filled breast implants and associated sizers for 6 months over concerns the manufacturers sterilisation method had not been properly validated.

“If you have received a Cereform breast implant and did not experience an infection soon after the surgery, then you should not experience any problems associated with this issue,” the TGA advised women.