The husband of a British mother-of-three who died following liposuction in Turkey has told an inquest that his wife underwent the treatment because she was fed up with people asking if she was pregnant.

Abimbola Ajoke Bamgbose, a 38-year-old social worker from Dartford, died in August after buying an overseas package deal with Mono Cosmetic Surgery.

Her husband Moyosore Olowo told the Maidstone hearing that his wife had not told him that she was travelling to Turkey to undergo the treatment as well as a Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) and he believed she was simply going on holiday with friends.

It was only after she had undergone the treatment in Izmir, a city on the country’s Aegean coast, that Mrs Bamgbose telephoned her husband to inform him that she had had the treatment and was suffering from stomach pains.

Mr Olowo said: “I wasn’t happy to know after she had done it. I told her: ‘You have had it now, when you get home we will discuss it further’.”

Describing his wife’s reason for wanting the treatment, he said: “When a woman is unhappy and getting feelings about her looks, the clothes she buys do not fit and people ask if she is pregnant because of her tummy, sometimes there is nothing we can do, we are powerless.

“I wasn’t concerned. I told her ‘You have three children’, I told her my tummy is bigger than hers, ‘Why are you bothered about having surgery?’”

Mr Olowo said his wife had visited a private medical practice in the UK but that the cost had been too high for her to have the treatment carried out there.

Mr Olowo, a rail safety officer for Network Rail, said that he travelled to Turkey after his wife stopped calling him and he was unable to find out about her well-being.

He said that after he arrived he found she had been rushed to hospital and had undergone further surgery.

Mr Olowo said: “It wasn’t until I got there the medical director told me candidly it was serious, the clinic was just telling me everything was fine. It was just then he confessed it had been a mistake and there had never been such a mistake before.”

The inquest heard that a post-mortem examination, carried out at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, found that Mrs Bamgbose suffered perforations to the bowel and a cause of death was given as peritonitis with multiple organ failure as a complication of liposuction surgery.

Dr Firth, a consultant pathologist at the hospital said it was the "worst example of peritonitis" he had seen for "quite a while".

The hearing was told that such perforations were a rare complication in the UK, with about three to five cases in the past decade, but that it might be more common abroad.

Recording a narrative conclusion, assistant coroner Alan Blunsdon said: "Abimbola Ajoke Bamgbose died on the 31 August 2020 at the private medical park in Turkey.

"She had undergone elective cosmetic surgery on the 17 August. Post operation she had pains in her abdomen and her condition deteriorated."

The coroner added: “This is a tragic case, the more so because the surgery was elective cosmetic surgery.

“Whilst Mrs Bamgbose was determined to have it performed, her husband had not seen it in any way as necessary.

“Although he was supportive if she was to have the surgery in England, he was very concerned about any decision to have the surgery abroad, which was the explanation why she had concealed the surgery from him and masked her trip to Turkey as a holiday with some girlfriends.”

Mr Olowo has previously told the PA news agency that he is suing Mono Cosmetic Surgery and the surgeon responsible, Dr Hakan Aydogan, for £1 million, claiming medical negligence. Proceedings have been issued in the Turkish courts.

He said that his wife had paid £5,000 for the package with Mono.

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