Following a BBC 10-o’clock news item on Thursday 9th October on the dangers of having Gastric Banding in Belgium, Cosmetic Bliss, who, of course, co-operate exclusively with Dr Michal Cierny PhD in Brno, Czech Republic for all bariatric surgery felt the need to respond.
Cosmetic Bliss hold no brief for Belgian Weight Loss Surgeons, and strongly support IFSO guidelines on appropriate BMI levels being used as a factor in risk assessment of patient suitability for surgery. All surgery performed under general anaesthesia carries a risk however, and the laparoscopic techniques used in Gastric Banding and Sleeve Gastrectomies, although proven to have several advantages over open surgery, are not risk-free. Nevertheless, under the care of an experienced specialist surgeon such as Dr Cierny, and with the support of a good surgical team the risks of surgery for a patient are much smaller than the risks involved in remaining obese. It is the duty of the surgeon and his team to make an assessment of a patient’s
suitability for surgery on the basis of this risk assessment.

In a normal city you would expect a special bus line that goes from the international airport to the city center. Not everybody can afford a cab, and not everybody likes cabs as such.

In Brno, the airport is served by regular bus line number 76 that has about ten stops on the way to the center and thus is used also by people from the neighborhood the bus goes through. And it is also used by people who work in the industrial zone that neighbors the airport.

Result?

Brits spending £161m a year on medical tourism
Last year over 50,000 Britons traveled abroad for low cost medical treatment, with trips for cosmetic surgery and dentistry among the most popular. A rapidly growing number of UK residents are now combining a few weeks in the sun with surgery for popular procedures such as breast augmentation, liposuction, tummy-tucks and teeth whitening.

Huge savings can be made by going abroad for treatment and this growing trend for medical tourism is set to soar with many people choosing to travel to exotic places as far a field as Malaysia and India with locations like Spain, Cyprus and Belgium among the most popular among British medical tourists.

By CTK / Published 20 August 2007
Prague, Aug 18 (CTK) - Czech plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac from Olomouc, north Moravia, has become head of a U.S. team that will become the third one in the world to transplant faces, Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.

Another such workplace is only in France. It transplanted the face of a woman whom a dog bit out a cheek, the lips and the nose.

“The third clinic is in China but the doctors have not released any detailed data on the operations, so it is difficult to say how successful they are,” Pohamac, 36, told the paper.

2007-08-13 Ucompare
www.Ucompare-Cosmeticsurgery.co.uk
In our first instalment, we are choosing to have a look at the various factors that have resulted in a huge growth in the cosmetic surgery industry in the Czech Republic, and discuss why Prague in particular has become a centre for cosmetic surgery excellence in Europe.

There are predominantly three main factors which has converged to result in the growth in cosmetic surgery in Prague. Firstly, lower prices for comparable cosmetic surgery in Prague, sometimes in the region of 60% have meant that the overall cost saving made by having your cosmetic surgery in the Czech Republic can often be as much as £2,500 - £3,000. Significant savings such as these have resulted cosmetic surgery in Prague becoming increasingly accessible to more moderate income earners in the UK.

By Bernard Purcell - Irish Independent - Thursday July 26 2007
AIRLINES and airports will be banned from charging for assisting disabled and elderly passengers under new EU rules. Airlines, airports and travel agents will now be obliged to ensure that would-be travellers with reduced mobility are afforded the same levels of access as the able-bodied. The airlines and airports now have a change-over period of a year until the new rules can be enforced.

The Associated Press August 1, 2007, 2:18PM ET PRAGUE, Czech Republic

Tourists visiting one of Europe’s most beautiful cities often face an ugly reality — some Prague taxi drivers like to rip them off.

But City Hall wants to put a stop to that. It is introducing dozens of taxi stands — marked with thumbs-ups signs — that will guarantee passengers a fair fare, a city official said Wednesday.

The city’s fight against price-gouging cabbies intensified two years ago when the mayor himself was ripped off royally. Disguised as a tourist, Mayor Pavel Bem was charged six times the regular fare for a trip between the Old Town Square and the Prague Castle — two major tourist attractions.

Friday, 03 Aug 2007 12:09
Northern Irish travellers will have more choice over their flights from Belfast with four new cheap European flights from Easyjet.

The low-cost airline has announced it will be flying to Prague, Barcelona, Venice and Gdansk from Belfast airport.

Twice weekly flights to Gdansk start from October 30th. There will be four flights a week to the Czech capital Prague, and twice weekly flights to Venice in Italy both from November 1st 2007. All three new flight routes start from £39.98 return including taxes.

Cheap flights to Barcelona from Belfast are set to start from November 3rd 2007 on a three times per week basis, with prices from £34.98 return including taxes.

By CTK / Published 31 July 2007 Prague, July 30 (CTK)

Most Czechs in favour of smoking ban in restaurants
- The number of Czechs who mind smoking in restaurants, bars and cafes is rising and over half of the population would like to ban smoking at such places completely, a poll conducted by the Median agency for the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) has revealed.

The results differ considerably from another poll made by the Eurobarometer agency half a year ago. Only one third of Czechs were in favour of non-smoking restaurants then,MfD writes today.

[14-01-2007] By Ian Willoughby  -  Radio Prague
 Around a month ago I was sitting in a café on Manesova Street, near the centre of Prague, when in walked a small blonde woman of about 40 and sat down at the table beside me. One doesn’t like to stare of course, but she appeared to have two black eyes covered with slender strips of plaster. Minutes later another woman, a brunette, walked in wearing big, dark sunglasses and with a bandage on her nose. They both spoke with broad Geordie accents and I couldn’t help but wonder about them. Were they friends united in misery who had escaped violent partners in England for a quiet weekend in Prague?
 But then the penny dropped. A colleague had conducted interviews with UK clients - is patients the right word for those who undergo non-necessary surgery? - who stay in hotels and luxury flats on the street before and after their procedures. Overheard snippets of conversation touching on operating times confirmed they were not battered brides. The blonde’s freshly unhooded eyes and her pal’s new nose may even have been an early Christmas present from their partners.
Just a few days ago the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) strongly protested against a lottery launched in the UK in which the prize was free cosmetic surgery performed in Prague. The competition was held by one of a number of British firms which facilitate cosmetic surgery in the Czech Republic.
It seems BAAPS’s protest had nothing to do with a fear of losing clients to eastern European rivals. They said marketing tricks like lotteries had no place in medicine, and they would be just as strongly opposed if the prize operation were to be performed in Britain itself.
But why are the competition’s organisers and other agencies bringing their clients to Prague? For two main reasons it seems. Nips and tucks in the Czech capital cost British people around a third of what they would cost them at home. And apparently Czech plastic surgeons have acquired a reputation in the UK for professionalism. (By the way, there is quite a history of cosmetic surgery in this country: Professor Frantisek Burian, who established a chair of plastic surgery at Prague’s Charles University in 1938, is regarded as one of the fathers of modern plastic surgery.)
Cheap flights from regional centres all around the UK are also a factor: groups of beery lads on stag weekends aren’t the only beneficiaries of the budget airline boom.