If something goes wrong
Something doesn’t feel right after your surgery. Here is what happens next.
This is written for two in the morning, not for the sales page. Who is responsible for you while you’re still in India, what changes the moment you land home, and what a real complication costs to sort out, in time and money.
The honest answer, if something goes wrong, depends entirely on where you are when it happens. While you’re still in India and under the care of the treating hospital and surgeon, they are responsible for managing it. That is where the clinical relationship and the legal responsibility both sit, and the right first move is to raise it with your treating team or the hospital’s duty doctor directly, not to wait until you’re home. If it feels urgent, tell the hospital immediately and treat it as an emergency there, in the country where the operation happened.
Once you’ve flown home, responsibility does not automatically transfer to your own doctor. If what you’re feeling is urgent in any way, go straight to your local emergency services or nearest emergency department, immediately, not to us and not to anyone else first. If it isn’t urgent, contact your own GP or specialist, bring everything you were given in India with you, and know that we can help you work out who to contact and what to hand them. We do not diagnose, prescribe or treat, and we cannot manage a complication remotely.
Medically reviewed
Reviewed by Dr Gunjan Patel, MBBS, registered with the Gujarat Medical Council (G-65059). Last reviewed 2 September 2026. Reviewed for accuracy only. This page is general information, not advice about your own case, and Dr Gunjan Patel does not diagnose, prescribe or treat.
Discomfort versus complication
What ‘going wrong’ actually covers.
Patients conflate two very different things: the normal discomfort of healing, and a genuine complication that needs clinical attention. Confusing the two causes two opposite problems, needless panic over something ordinary, or a dangerous delay in getting help for something that is not.
Most recovery is uncomfortable in ways that are entirely expected and not a sign that anything has gone wrong. Swelling, bruising, a wound that looks angry rather than neat, fatigue that outlasts what you expected, pain that needs regular medication for a week or two, and a mood that dips before it lifts, all of that is ordinary, though only a clinician who can examine you can say so for certain in your case. The treating team should have given you a written description of what normal recovery looks like for your specific procedure before you left the hospital, with a rough timeframe attached.
A genuine complication is a departure from that expected path, not simply a harder version of the same thing. None of what follows is a diagnosis and it is not meant to be. It is a shape to notice, and the judgement about what it means belongs to a clinician who can examine you, not to a page like this one.
Two of the six below are not on the same level as the rest, and are worth pulling out before you read the list. Sudden breathlessness, chest pain or swelling in one leg, and bleeding that will not stop, are emergencies in their own right, not something to mention at your next check-in. If either is what you are feeling, go to your nearest emergency department or call emergency services immediately, wherever you are, rather than waiting to ask anyone first. Everything else on the list is worth raising with a clinician, but is not, by itself, a reason to treat it as an emergency.
- Redness, heat or swelling that is increasing, not settling
- A fever that develops rather than fades
- Pain that is worse after the first few days, not better
- Sudden breathlessness, chest pain or swelling in one leg. This is a medical emergency: go to your nearest emergency department or call emergency services immediately, not something to wait and ask about first.
- Bleeding that does not stop, or a wound that reopens. If the bleeding will not stop, treat that as an emergency too, and call emergency services or go to your nearest emergency department right away.
- An implant, repair or operated area that does not look or feel right
The uncomfortable part
Who is responsible, and what it costs.
Responsibility does not hand over automatically the moment you land home, and almost nobody prices in what happens if it doesn't go to plan.
While you are still in India, responsibility is straightforward. The hospital and the surgeon who operated are responsible for your care. They hold the clinical relationship, the records, and, in most cases, the legal liability if something has gone wrong with the surgery itself. It is also the easiest point to raise a concern, because the people who know exactly what they did are down the corridor rather than a flight away.
The moment you land back home, none of that transfers automatically. Your own doctor has no obligation to pick up where an operation they did not perform left off, and there are real, defensible reasons they might hesitate even when they want to help. They were not there. They have no relationship with the surgeon who operated. They often cannot verify what was implanted, which technique was used, or what the follow-up plan was supposed to be, from a summary written quickly in a hospital they have never dealt with before. That is not obstruction. It is a reasonable response to being handed a case with incomplete information and open-ended liability, and it is worth understanding before you find yourself relying on it.
When a complication needs further treatment, the cost is rarely just the bill for the extra care. This is the closest published UK data on what that can look like.
655
NHS patients were treated for complications after bariatric and cosmetic surgery abroad between 2011 and 2024, 61 percent of it in Turkey, with no cardiac, orthopaedic, spine or neurosurgical cases in the review. At least 53 percent of those cases were moderate to severe, and the cost, drawn from often incomplete hospital records, ran from about 1,058 to 19,549 pounds per patient
BMJ Open rapid review, January 2026 Checked 2026-08-19.
The 655 patients are dominated by bariatric and cosmetic surgery tourism, mostly to Turkey (61 percent of cases). The review contains no cardiac, orthopaedic, spine or neurosurgical cases. Treat this as the closest published cost evidence for a surgical complication treated after return, not a figure specific to any one procedure or destination. The authors themselves rate their confidence in the cost range as low, because it relies on hospital records that were often incomplete.
Either way, that figure covers care once a patient is back home, not what it costs to sort something out while still abroad, which usually means an extended hotel stay, changed flights, and sometimes a further procedure before you are fit to travel at all. What published guidance says about the wait before you fly home is set out on its own page.
Insurance is a separate question. Many travel insurance policies exclude planned treatment abroad, and a policy may not be valid for the complications that follow it. Whether yours pays for one turns on its exact wording, and our guide to insurance for treatment abroad sets out what official bodies say and how to ask an insurer in writing. The original quote for the surgery almost never prices this scenario either. It covers the operation that goes to plan, not the one that needs an extra week or a second procedure.
- An extended stay in India while you are assessed or treated further
- Changed flights and extra nights, usually at your own cost
- A further procedure, if one is needed, before you are fit to fly home
- Travel insurance that may not cover planned treatment abroad or its complications, with the checks set out in what official bodies say about insurance for treatment abroad
- The original quote, which almost never prices in this scenario at all
Before you fly
What to have arranged before you ever fly.
None of this depends on which company you use, or whether you use one at all. It is what a careful patient has in place before the flight, not after.
Checking a hospital’s accreditation and a surgeon’s registration before you choose one is a different exercise, one that also covers how many times a surgeon has done your specific procedure. This is the shorter list for afterward, for what happens if the choice you made still needs a plan B. It takes an evening to get through, not a specialist, and it applies whether you use a coordination company, a facilitator, or arrange everything yourself.
None of the following costs anything to ask for. What it costs is a slightly awkward conversation before you have paid for anything, which is a far better time to have it than after.
- The named surgeon, and a written fallback if they are unavailable on the day
- Your insurer’s written answer on whether planned treatment abroad is covered specifically, not just travel in general, using the written questions to put to an insurer
- The cost of an extra week, a further procedure or changed flights, asked of the hospital or coordinator before you commit to a figure
- Your own doctor, told before you go rather than after, with a direct answer on whether they will pick up follow-up care
- Exactly what documentation you will leave with: the operative note, any implant details, and a written recovery plan with warning signs to watch for, plus the further papers listed in our guide to coming home after hospital care abroad
- A named person you can reach if something feels wrong, and how, agreed before you need it
- How a complication would be handled logistically: who covers an extended stay, and how you would arrange a second opinion on what happened
Questions
What people ask about this.
Does this mean I shouldn't travel abroad for surgery at all?
No. It means going in prepared rather than assuming nothing will go wrong.
Most operations, in India or anywhere else, follow the expected path. This page exists for the minority that do not, so that if you are one of them, you already know what to do instead of working it out for the first time while it is happening.
What if the complication was the hospital's fault, rather than just bad luck?
The first step is the same either way: get treated, wherever you are, before working out why it happened.
Once you are stable, the two situations diverge. A recognised risk of the procedure that you were clearly consented for before surgery is different, both legally and practically, from an error in how the procedure was carried out. If you think it is the second, keep every record, ask the treating hospital for a full written account of what happened, and consider independent clinical and legal advice once you are home. That is a separate process from arranging your care, and it tends to go better as its own step rather than folded into recovery.
I'm already home and something doesn't feel right. Should I message the company that arranged my trip first?
Not if it feels urgent, no. Go to your local emergency services or nearest emergency department first, always, and tell them you had surgery abroad and roughly when.
Only once you are safe should you message whoever arranged your trip, so they can help with what comes next. Getting care always comes before that message, never the other way round.
How do I know if what I'm feeling is normal recovery or something worse?
If what you are feeling is sudden or severe, especially breathlessness, chest pain, heavy bleeding that will not stop, or a wound coming apart, treat it as an emergency. Go to your nearest emergency department or call emergency services immediately, wherever you are. Do not try to work out first whether it qualifies.
For anything short of that, you often cannot be completely sure, and that is fine. It is not your job to be sure. The general shape is that steadily improving is normal and steadily worsening is not, and a plateau that runs on for several days is worth a call regardless of which side it seems to sit on. If you are unsure, the safer move is to ask a clinician rather than wait and see.
Does Your Care Promise handle the complication itself?
No, and we want to be direct about that.
We coordinate care and move information between you, the treating hospital and your own doctor. We do not diagnose, prescribe or treat, and we do not provide emergency cover of any kind. If something is urgent, local emergency services come first, always, before any message to us.
If you're already home and stuck, start here.
A free thirty minute conversation, whether you’re planning treatment or trying to sort out something that has already happened.