Marie had a facelift at Akademikliniken in Stockholm, one of the largest and most reputable aesthetic clinics in the Nordics. Immediately after the operation, she realized that something had gone wrong.
– It was a pain I had never experienced before. It felt like someone had driven an iron rod through the head, along the temples, Marie tells Kalla fakta.
Several investigations and doctors at Karolinska University Hospital have concluded that too much skin and tissue was removed during the procedure. Among other things, Marie’s earlobes were cut off without her consent. She has undergone five corrective surgeries, but will never fully recover.
The clinic’s offer: 95,000 – in exchange for her silence
In social media, Marie has told about the operation and the injuries. Earlier this year, the Academy Clinic offered to reimburse the cost of the operation. They also offered Marie an extra SEK 95,000 – in return for her silence. She has not agreed to that.
– What they have done is serious. I’m not going to be quiet about it. Not for any money, she says.
Cold facts have taken part in seven so-called non-disclosure agreements. Three of them are from the Academy Clinic. The others have been set up by other large, Swedish clinics that market themselves with promises of safety and security.
“Want it to stop between us”
Several agreements have been drawn up by the well-known surgeon Fredrik Gewalli, former chairman of the Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. He has conditioned the patients’ silence with a fine of one hundred thousand kroner.
– If it is an agreement, we want it to stay between us, he says.
Fredrik Gewalli believes that it is about making the patients as satisfied as possible and that he experiences it as something both parties agree on.
– I don’t want it to appear as if we are buying silence, but we are saying that if you make a financial settlement, you shouldn’t go out the next day in Expressen and say that the Academy Clinic has not signed up, says Ulf Samuelson, surgeon and co-owner of Academy Clinic.
The entire Kalla facts program ‘Beauty and clinics’ is available at TV4 Play from 06.00 Thursday morning and broadcast on TV4 20.00 Thursday.
See Cold facts on TV4 Play
The cold facts program “Locked in” is a four-part series. A summary linear version will be broadcast on TV4 on Thursday, August 31 at 21.00.