(WSVN) - After undergoing plastic surgery, some patients are sent to recovery centers for special care. But we found some recovery centers are operating in hotels. 7’s Heather Walker investigates.
On a sunny July afternoon, travelers are checking into this Miami hotel and so are patients.
Labresha Green/recovery patient: “In the hotel, there’s a lot of girls in there in different rooms, on different floors.”
This woman who spoke to 7 Investigates was once one of them. We set up a camera to see for ourselves. 7Investigates watched the hotel for two months.
Our camera captured patients being picked up and dropped off. Many still in surgical gowns and bathrobes. Others with extensive bandages. Some with medical drainage bags filled with fluid.
Labresha Green: “They’re doing a lot of stuff at the hotel is booked, but they don’t have any space left and it’s probably because most of them are girls coming for plastic surgery.”
Labresha Green came to Miami for a Brazilian butt lift and tummy tuck last summer. The surgical coordinator at her doctor’s office told her she had to book her post-surgical care with a specific company at a local hotel and it wasn’t cheap.
Labresha green: “$200 per day. They want you to go to that hotel. So. Yeah, a lot of money.”
Money Labresha knew she had to pay because she would not be able to take care of herself for several days.
Labresha Green: “I can’t do anything but lay on my stomach like helpless when you can’t, like, pull your pants up or, like, wash your body.”
Labresha says despite a promise for 24-hour care, getting help from her caretakers was difficult.
Labresha Green: “I was asking she could take my blood pressure or if she had like a thermometer or something and they said ‘No.’ Every time I asked it was like ‘No, we don’t have it.'”
We found hotels also being used as recovery centers in Broward County.
A New Jersey woman sued her plastic surgeon after being “diagnosed with life-threatening sepsis and impending multisystem collapse”.
The lawsuit claims the doctor failed “to recognize a serious infection brewing inside her body” even though she had paid the doctor for an “upcharge premium package” in a Fort Lauderdale hotel.
Chris Russomanno / attorney: “She thinks this is the best care you can possibly get. She has a 24/7 alleged registered nurse that’s sleeping with you, that’s taking vitals and supposedly giving the vitals back to the doctor.”
Her attorney Chris Russomanno says the woman settled her case. But he fears most patients don’t understand the risks of these post-operative hotel stays.
Chris Russomanno: “It’s just a constant turnover and turnover of different women coming in with open wounds, JP drains. It’s a dangerous situation in my eyes.”
It is perfectly legal for a hotel to rent rooms to people recovering from plastic surgery, but a company like the one Labresha was told to hire that has several patients at the same hotel could be a problem.
Chris Nuland: Lawyer/lobbyist Florida Association of Plastic Surgeons: “They are at the very edge and may be in fact skirting the law because home health agencies are designed to do just that. They are to take care of you in your home.”
The lawyer for the Florida Association of Plastic Surgeons says facilities caring for multiple patients should be licensed and inspected.
Chris Nuland: “These patients are not fully healed. They have drains and they can get infected. A hotel is no place for a patient who cannot take care of themselves and may have medical needs.”
Labresha says she needed to be hospitalized for blood loss after she was kicked out of the hotel for questioning her care.
Labresha Green: “She just left me basically naked in the bathroom.”
She says she should have checked out her caregivers before she checked in.
Heather Walker 7News
CONTACT 7 INVESTIGATES:
305-627-CLUE
954-921-CLUE
7Investigates@wsvn.com
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