Davison and Rosenthal have joined the growing ranks of tourists leaving South Africa with more than a tan and a wooden giraffe. The country is rapidly becoming a top destination for plastic surgery, the result of its weakening currency and its longstanding reputation for medical excellence. “The lower the rand falls, the more advantageous it is for people to come,” says Gavin Morrison, a former president of the Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons of South Africa. John Hill, a Cape Town surgeon who performs laser eye surgery, says his foreign clientele has more than doubled in the last year. The procedure costs 9,000 rand for both eyes –just over $1,000, compared with [Pound sterling]9,000 in England. For a full face-lift, a trip to South Africa can save $10,000. “A couple can go on a two- to three-week holiday here for less than the cost of a face-lift in New York,” says Alastair Lamont, a Johannesburg plastic surgeon.
Now the travel industry has hit upon a novel approach to capitalize on the trend: surgery-and-safari packages. Increasingly, agencies are offering face-lifts and tummy tucks as part of vacation packages that include safari trips, sightseeing and shopping. Patients can have everything arranged, from airport transfers to a post-op recovery house complete with maid, gardener and masseuse. The one thing travel agents can’t book: the actual surgery. South African law prohibits plastic surgeons from touting their services or from joining a second party–such as a travel agent–to drum up business. But the law leaves enough room for a firm to arrange a “consultation” between doctor and potential patient. Then the client can book the surgery on his or her own.
Typically, a patient arrives, consults a doctor and goes on a three- to five-day safari before having surgery. A two-week visit runs just over $10,000. A seven-day package, enough for breast augmentation or laser resurfacing, costs 34,900 rand–about $4,500. “In terms of value for money, we can offer a very high level of service,” says Lorraine Melvill, owner of Surgeons and Safari.
The recovery may be the best part. Melvill says the quality of aftercare in South Africa far exceeds that in other countries. “In America, you’d be sent home” the day after your operation, she says. In South Africa, doctors usually keep patients in the hospital for two days to check for complications. Her firm’s package includes a subsequent average 10-day stay in a five-star hotel, a chauffeur-driven car, meals and two recuperation therapies a day, ranging from manicures to aromatherapy. It can be better than a month at the spa: after 60-year-old Gerald Mahoney had his face lifted in Johannesburg last August, he checked into the tony Rivonia Inn, put on an eye mask and listened to soap operas. He ate meals prepared by a private chef and even lost weight while recovering. When he went to a dinner party five days after the surgery, no one knew he’d been under the knife, he says. “It was really an easy, great experience.”
Last week it was still too soon to say whether Davison and Rosenthal will ever describe it that way. Two days after their face-lifts, both women were woozy. “Pain is too strong a word, but it’s very uncomfortable,” said Davison. “It feels like they cut my ear off and stuck it back with chewing gum.” But both women were glad they had done it–and even more glad that it was over. Before the surgery, Davison mused, “We don’t need face-lifts, we need brain transplants. It’s all in our heads.” Maybe so, but that doesn’t make it any less satisfying to leave the wrinkles to the elephants.
