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Perth Woman Hospitalised For 7 Months After Bungled Thailand Cosmetic Surgery

Her liver, kidneys, heart and brain shut down

It was always meant to be the trip of a lifetime, but for 28-year-old Courtney O-Keefe, it was very nearly the last holiday she ever had.

O’Keefe travelled with nine other women on an Australian-organised tour to Thailand for breast augmentation surgery, which left her fighting for her life in an Australian hospital for seven months, suffering multiple seizures and eventually having a double partial mastectomy.

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She has been left unable to breastfeed her five-month-old baby, Nine News reports, and has also developed a related heart condition.

One of the removed breast implants.

O’Keefe had the breast implants put in at Pattaya Hospital in Thailand in 2013. She paid $7500 for the trip, which she decided to embark on to treat herself after losing 35-kilograms.

She told Nine News she was shocked when she arrived at the Thai hospital. “I just remember thinking to myself, ‘this isn’t like Australian standards,” she says. “It was dirty, it didn’t feel right and it didn’t look right. It didn’t look clean.”

Nevertheless, O’Keefe went ahead with the surgery. She says she contracted a superbug from the hospital, however doctors told Nine News she developed the infection after failing to follow post-operative health guidelines.

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