Surgery is the cheap part. The follow-up year is what separates a package from a programme.
Surgeon, anaesthetist, laparoscopic theatre, 2–3 nights in hospital with ICU on standby, pre-operative bloods and endoscopy, leak test before discharge, medication, VIP transfers, translation and twelve months of dietitian follow-up.
That the hospital has an intensive care unit on site; that a leak test is performed before discharge; that the surgeon is a general surgeon specialised in bariatrics; and that dietitian follow-up is included rather than sold later.
Weight regain after sleeve is almost always behavioural, not surgical. A programme with monthly dietitian contact for a year outperforms a cheaper package with a discharge leaflet — that difference shows up at year three, not week three.
Privately in the UK or Germany the same operation costs €12,000–€20,000. The surgical technique is identical; what differs is overhead and volume, exactly as in every other field of medical tourism.
Two to three. We do not discharge before a leak test and a normal blood panel.