Recently, it has been circulating in the news and newspapers that patients operated on at private plastic surgery clinics seek care after surgery and take up spaces in the care queue as well as burdening the public healthcare system. The department head at Karolinska believes that this will soon become a major problem that will need to be addressed in one way or another.

We at Novokliniken absolutely agree that our patients should not have to burden the public healthcare system. The operating clinic/doctor should be on call for their patients. But of course, we do not have the same resources as a hospital.

This does not mean that we cannot take care of our patients during "off-peak" hours for initial assessment and action. At Novokliniken we have staff on standby at all times, but primarily our plastic surgeon is always available for their patients and can answer questions and make assessments. You can contact the clinic at any time either via email or emergency phone, as they are staffed even during weekends. If necessary, we have the opportunity to receive newly operated patients during off-peak hours. We also inform our patients about this, and it is completely free of charge for the patient. Our routines include follow-up visits and monitoring of the patient from surgery up to the final check, which is usually after 12 months.

What we do want, however, is that all plastic surgeons in Sweden jointly need to agree on giving clear recommendations or guidelines regarding what we think about "medical tourism". It is never about the competence that exists outside the country, but always about patient safety, as we feel the focus is misplaced in this discussion. The fact is that private clinics in Sweden are funded by their patients, and we depend on our finances for the business to survive. It has also turned out that one of the main reasons people choose to have surgery abroad is the cheaper price. This means that when patients are back home in Sweden and have suffered a complication, their wallet is empty, and then a private clinic is not an option for them. Furthermore, as a private clinic that resembles a hospital ward more but does not have a hospital's resources and capacity, we have tremendous respect for multi-resistant bacteria that could shut down our entire business for a long time. We at Novokliniken have a routine follow-up of our patients, and assessment, treatment, and action are taken by our surgeon if the "problem" is related to the surgery performed with us.

Then there are always questions that arise when thinking about seeking care from different groups. Why is there a difference in how people feel about caring for patients who have undergone "cosmetic surgery" compared to, for example, someone who has been on a skiing holiday and broken their leg? Both groups paid for it themselves and can be compared as they both take up space in the care queue.

One can also wonder if more regulations against clinics in Sweden are really the right alternative. As a private clinic, we always look up to the public healthcare system as a role model and always have patient safety as a priority. The consideration then is whether private clinics will survive, and it brings the risk that more patients will seek surgery abroad, return to Sweden to seek care, and take up even more space in the care queue. It is worth mentioning that private plastic surgery clinics do not only perform aesthetic surgery. At our clinic, about 30-40% of the surgeries are classified as medical operations. This means that these are patients who most likely applied to public healthcare for help but got stuck in a queue or were rejected, and subsequently turned to us for their issues.

The conclusion is that we generally agree with the public healthcare system and that more discussions are needed on how to handle the growing problem together.