A Trip To Tijuana For Cosmetic Surgery Ends In Tragedy For 3 Calif. Women

Speaker 1: 00:00 People have long traveled across the border to save thousands of dollars on medical procedures, including cosmetic surgery, which is an industry that's seeing a boom, but one California woman Kiana Weaver died on the operating table after crossing into Tijuana for a cosmetic procedure. She's not the only one, two others had been rushed to the hospital with life-threatening complications and are still recovering. They all went to one clinic where Dr. Zeus men, well, BICE Lopez performed cosmetic surgery in January of this year. As Wendy fry, a reporter for the San Diego union Tribune, watchdog and accountability team reports. Lopez is not actually a plastic surgeon and there's little oversight in Mexico to stop him. Wendy, welcome. Speaker 2: 00:48 Hi, thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 00:50 So you start your recent report talking about how medical tourism is seeing an uptick across the border in Tijuana, what's driving this recent interest, Speaker 2: 00:59 Right? And that boom is not just in cosmetic surgery. Although there has been an increase in that, uh, what's called the zoom boom, which comes from people basically wanting plastic surgery because they're been spending more and more time staring at their faces on zoo. Also a lot of, I think maybe a lot of women might have more downtime that not having to go into the office and explain sort of the aftermath of the surgery also might be driving it a little bit, but there's also the fact that overall in general, Mexico is been striving for many years to become this world-class leader in medical tourism. And Tupac is kind of at the center of that. Speaker 1: 01:39 How much cheaper are these cosmetic procedures into Speaker 2: 01:42 Women are, have been able to save depending on exactly what they're having done. Thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. So as surgery that would cost me $30,000 in the United States is maybe six or $7,000 there Speaker 1: 01:58 For three women who went to get cosmetic surgery at one clinic in Tiquana, none of them left unharmed. Speaker 2: 02:05 And what happened. That's the key question right there is what happened, you know, on this one day at the same clinic that all three women went to and basically all three women, according to what they've told us had varying degrees of what seems to be the same, because the way that doctors were able to explain it to me is that basically when the surgery was over and they went to close them back up, they did it too tightly in a way that squished all their organs together. And so their organs were no longer able to continue functioning. So like the digestive organs, those functions weren't able to continue happening, which is obviously very serious and for Kiana fatal Speaker 1: 02:48 And for the family of Kiana Weaver, who you briefly mentioned, um, she actually died on the operating table and it's been difficult to find out what went wrong with her surgery. Specifically. You talk about that. Speaker 2: 03:00 Sure. So the problem is right now, there does not exist a death certificate at all, or any kind of record whatsoever of Kiana Weaver's death within buyer California's tracking system within their medical examiners data, basically. So there was no autopsy on, and there's just no records whatsoever. Other than this one form that Kianna's mother had to fill out to transfer her body back from Baja, California, to California, which does list a cause of death on it. And what it lists on that document is cardio respiratory arrest. So basically her heart stopped. She's not breathing. Speaker 1: 03:39 So is there any investigation into the medical malpractice for her? Speaker 2: 03:43 No, not as far as we know, there's no investigation going on. We followed up again with the facility, with the attorney general after the article ran to see if there had been any movement and no, we have not heard of any agency investigating. In fact, Dr. B's was still operating. Actually his receptionist told me he was in the middle of a surgery when I went in person to seek comment from him Speaker 1: 04:05 And Kanisha Davis. Uh, and a friend also went to see Dr. His Zeus, Manuel Baez Lopez for a tummy tuck and liposuction Davis, who was a nurse, said she saw red flags and ended up in the hospital. What happened there? Speaker 2: 04:19 Right? So she said she wasn't hooked up to any monitors during the surgery. And just as a nurse, she felt something wasn't going on correctly in her body. And she knew she would not have released a patient that was in her condition. She was dizzy. She couldn't walk when she arrived in the ER, she actually, she waited for a long time at the, in the ER, because she wasn't able to pull to really articulate what was wrong. She just felt like things were off. But once they ran a cat scan, things started moving very, very quickly because they told her she had a hematoma and was very close to death if she hadn't come in when she did. And if she hadn't gotten medical care when she did, Speaker 1: 04:56 And there was a, a somewhat similar experience for Esmerelda Angus, where did her procedure go wrong? Speaker 2: 05:03 Basically, it's the exact same story, except she has not yet been able to regain any function of our kidneys. Oh, Speaker 1: 05:11 Wow. So how has that impacted her life? Speaker 2: 05:13 So she's still on dialysis and she was starting to recover. And then in April, her wound got reinfected and she's been in and out of the hospital Speaker 1: 05:23 More about doctor buys, Lopez. I mean, what kind of credentials does he have? Speaker 2: 05:29 He is a doctor. He is a general physician, but he only has a two year master's degree in aesthetic surgery, which we're told by other doctors and other surgeons that that's not really surgery. They, they market it as surgery, but it's not actually surgery. It's like getting Botox or aesthetics. And he does not have listed among his credentials, any training or education as a plastic surgeon, which I understand is a six-year process that you have to be in school, do training, do testing for six years before you become a surgeon. Speaker 1: 06:00 So how is he able to operate then as a cosmetic surgeon in Mexico? Speaker 2: 06:04 My understanding is that there's just a lack of oversight that allows people to do these procedures. And if they go, well, then no one asks any questions and they're able to get to new operating their business that way. Speaker 1: 06:18 Have any of his patients been able to hold him liable for these botched surgeries? Speaker 2: 06:22 Not that I'm aware of there hasn't been in any civil litigation. Speaker 1: 06:27 So what would you suggest someone do if they are considering going across the border for cosmetic surgery? Speaker 2: 06:33 Right. So, I mean, even with the savings, you know, whether it's 20,000 or whether it's $7,000 is still a significant amount of money, right. To invest. So you'd want to do all the research at least that you would do when you're buying a car or making a huge purchase, right? You want to compare different doctors, talk to people who have had surgeries with them, but then also you definitely want to look on this site. That's the Mexican association of plastic surgeons and reconstructive surgery. The link is in the story that I did put in Baja, California. And that was all of the surgeons who are part of this association. And they cannot be a part of the association if they do not have the actual training as a surgeon, Speaker 1: 07:16 I've been speaking with Wendy fry, a reporter for the San Diego union Tribune, watchdog and accountability team. Wendy, thank you so much for joining us. Speaker 2: 07:24 Thanks, Jason.