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'It was like he tried to put a truck in my chest': Ordeal of plastic surgery
victim scarred for life by 'charming' doctor
By Cormac Mcquinn for the Daily Mail 22 May 2011
Victory at a price: Kate Murray: won her case and the
doctor who performed the operation was struck off the register
As Kate Murray lay in her bed at St Vincent’s hospital, recovering from
horrifying reconstructive surgery, she tried to alleviate her boredom by turning
to the hospital television.
It was no more than a half-hearted attempt to smother the memories of the
latest operation she had endured to correct an appallingly botched breast
augmentation.
But as she tuned in to what appeared to be some kind of medical drama, her
interest turned to horror: for there on the screen in front of her was Dr Marco
Loiacono – the very surgeon whose bungled surgery and negligent aftercare had
left her scarred and in fear for her life.
Loiacono, a slick smile fixed upon his face, was starring in a TV3 cosmetic
surgery programme – carrying out a tummy-tuck operation.
Kate froze, paralysed by shock and disbelief as she viewed Loiacono:
terrified both at the memory of her own ordeal and at the prospect that he might
inflict similar suffering on another unsuspecting patient.
The other patients in the ward, who knew the story behind Kate’s
reconstructive surgery, saw the agonised look on her face as she stared, almost
hypnotised, at the screen.
‘The people in my room said, “Was that the place? Was that him?” And I just
said, “Yes”,’ said Kate, 26. ‘I couldn’t watch it. It was unbelievable.’
Yet this appalling scenario was just one part of the ordeal endured by Kate
at the hands of Loiacono, a man who has been exposed as a butcher of his plastic
surgery patients – when he is not seducing them.
For Kate’s is a story that highlights again the human misery and suffering
inflicted by inept doctors, clinics that can be set up in any backstreet of any
town in Ireland – and a political establishment that simply refuses to bring in
basic laws which might save people like Kate from such horrors in the
future.
Kate’s ordeal began three years ago when she visited the Cosmedico clinic in
Co. Wicklow.
She had been considering breast augmentation for years, unhappy with her
natural chest size.
‘There was no, “I didn’t feel good about myself” – I did,’ said the Dún
Laoghaire native. ‘I just wanted them bigger.’
Kate went to Cosmedico in February 2008 and was thoroughly impressed by the
clinic’s charming Italian surgeon, who talked her through the options – as
required – and explained the risks, emphasising that complications were
rare.
The clinic told Kate that the operation normally cost €6,200 but, if she
signed up to have the surgery before March 27, it would cost €5,800.
‘I was thrilled,’ she said. ‘I wanted it the quicker the better, so to get it
quick and at a discount was fantastic.
Relief: Miss Murray and her mother Caroline
Hammond
‘I thought I was going to the bee’s knees of all cosmetic surgeons. I thought
he was going to be great.’
Kate arranged to have the surgery on March 15, while her mother, Caroline
Hammond, who was not entirely supportive of her plans, would be on holiday in
Budapest.
Loiacono set to work that day, incising under her breasts, inserting the
350cc implants Kate had requested and stitching her up after what at first
appeared to be a successful operation.
She was discharged the following day but it wasn’t long before Kate began to
suspect something had gone wrong.
On March 18, she threw up. Excruciating pain began to spread across her
abdomen and chest. She met Loiacono two days later but his medical notes state –
as, indeed, he told her – that he found ‘no sign of infection’.
Kate returned to Cosmedico every day for the next five days, complaining of a
yellow-green fluid seeping from her incision wounds and alarming blisters on
other parts of her breasts.
A nurse dressed the wounds on each occasion but she failed to see Loiacono –
she was told he was either operating at another clinic or taking a short break
back in Italy.
He didn’t return 14 calls to his mobile, Kate said.
She considered going to A&E at her local hospital in Loughlinstown but a
phone call to enquire about the waiting time – six hours – put her off. Finally
Loiacono reappeared on Wednesday, March 26.
It was, she says, ‘the worst day so far’. She ‘completely broke down’ when
she met Loiacono.
‘I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t understand the pain I was in,’ she
said.
Incredibly, Kate was told the implants were fine. Loiacono explained simply
that she’d take eight weeks to recover from the operation.
She feels ‘idiotic’ now but, like most people, she was conditioned to believe
a consultant surgeon. ‘Everything they said, I believed,’ she said. ‘He said,
“It’s superficial, you’re getting better”, and I started to think in my mind I
was getting better.’
She even told her mother in Budapest that she was on the mend so she wouldn’t
worry.
However, when Caroline returned that weekend, she found her daughter in a
desperate state – unable even to walk unassisted because of the crippling pain,
and having trouble breathing.
By March 31, after blood tests, even Loiacono had realised his handiwork had
gone horribly wrong.
He performed surgery that evening and took the drastic step of removing the
implants – but that wasn’t enough to end Kate’s agony.
The following day, she was back in Cosmedico to have the wounds dressed.
Again, Loiacono wasn’t there.
His colleague, fellow surgeon Keith Robertson saw her and noted ‘Kate did
well today’ – but that was not a view Kate shared.
Out of patience, Kate’s mother called a GP who arrived at their home at
11.30pm on April 3.
An hour later, Kate was in St Vincent’s University Hospital, where horrified
doctors found such severe infection on her chest, stomach and back that it had
almost developed into flesh-eating bug necrosis fasciitis.
Photos were taken of her horrific wounds on the advice of medical staff – and
Kate will never forget viewing those images.
‘I’ll always remember my initial reaction was, “Was that man trying to get a
truck into my chest?”.’
The consultant surgeon on call that night, Denis Evoy, has since told the
Medical Council’s Fitness to Practice committee investigating Loiacono that Kate
was suffering from ‘sepsis and extreme infection’ that ‘caused disarray in her
vital signs’.
Asked if her condition had been potentially fatal, he answered simply:
‘Yes’.
What followed for Kate was three years of reconstructive surgery at St
Vincent’s. The process will continue for years to come.
‘It has totally taken her 20s from her,’ Kate’s mother said.
In the meantime, the MoS began its investigative series on plastic surgery
clinics – and after exposing the shocking standards and lack of regulation, soon
came across the name of Marco Loiacono.
Until September 2009, he was still practising his handiwork – and even
appeared in that TV3 show on plastic surgery fronted by Caroline Morahan.
However as questions over his work grew more persistent, it is believed he left
Ireland for his native Italy in late 2009.
The MoS later revealed how he had seduced a female patient, then dumped her
after she expressed concerns at the breast augmentation he had given her; and we
revealed last year that he was accused of other botched surgeries as well.
On Friday, the IMC found him guilty of several counts of professional
misconduct. Expert witness Peter Meagher, a plastic surgeon, called his
treatment of Kate ‘absolutely reckless in the extreme’.
It was Dr Meagher who said Kate would be ‘horribly physically scarred for
life’.
The IMC’s committee recommended that Loiacono be struck off the register.
That would ban him from practising in Ireland.
He failed to appear on Friday and didn’t return calls, letters and emails
from the IMC.
Cosmedico director Ailish Kelly did appear, however, and insisted Kate had
been offered appropriate aftercare.
She denied responsibility and said that, at Cosmedico, ‘it was very much the
clinicians who would be responsible for patient care.’ The clinic claimed it did
not issue an apology for legal reasons.
Kate said Miss Kelly’s failure to apologise – and Loiacono’s failure even to
engage with the hearing – were hurtful but did not detract from her delight at
the result.
As allegation after allegation of his misconduct was found proven by the
committee, Kate and her mother hugged and burst into tears.
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