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(Credit: JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD / AFP via Getty Images)
(CNN Spanish) –– The
Dominican Republic remained a destination for medical tourism during the covid-19 pandemic, with a growing number of people who have visited the country to undergo plastic surgeries.
According to doctors consulted by CNN, in the second half of 2020 the number of these surgical procedures tripled.
Rather than being an obstacle, the pandemic appears to have created an opportunity for some patients to take advantage of surgery due to the country's attractiveness as a health tourism destination.
According to the Medical Tourism Index, the Dominican Republic is the first country in the Caribbean and Latin America in the ranking.
It ranks number 19 out of 46 nations.
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Paola Cordero is Dominican but resides in Italy and Luis Santana, also Dominican, lives in New York.
Although they settled on different continents, they have something in common.
Both are part of the long list of those who have opted for the scalpel during the pandemic.
«In Italy the quarantine began in March, it lasted four months.
I spent those four months at home, eating, watching series and I threw in a couple of extra pounds, "Cordero said.
She was suspended from her job when she decided to invest that "free time" in herself.
«The time I was locked up was looking for doctors on Instagram.
In other words, looking at their work, looking for recommendations, "he said.
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The decision for the young mother, who underwent liposuction and breast reduction, was easy.
"I was not doing anything.
Without leaving, without working and I came to Santo Domingo where my mother was in order to recover in peace.
Without the pressure of work, "he added.
Pandemic surgeries
Cordero's story is very similar to that of Luis Santana.
«I wanted to remove the excess skin that bothered me from my body.
We opted for a faster route which is cosmetic surgery, ”said Santana.
Clinical psychologist Ellus Sulbarán assures that the pandemic has led people to criticize her image.
«We have more days than before to see in the mirror those things that we could not see.
Those things that were making us more noise, that were bothering us for eating more, for anxiety and for losing the possibility of having physical activity in gyms, “he explained.
Santana has lost more than 68 kilos after undergoing stomach surgery in 2013. After being locked up, working from home and unable to go to the gym, he went to the operating room where he performed four procedures in one day: abdominoplasty, liposuction, and breast reduction and buttocks.
Fernando de la Cruz, surgeon and former president of the Dominican Society of Reconstructive and Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, stated that in September 2020 the number of beauty treatment patients tripled compared to the same month in 2019.
De la Cruz said that last September he had between 36 and 38 surgeries.
A calculation that tripled the procedures he had done in the same month of 2019.
Recent medical tourism procedures
One of the novelties of the beauty market during the pandemic in the Dominican Republic is the type of surgeries that are increasing, according to Sulbarán.
"In the part of the double chin, in the part of the eyes, blepharoplasty (a surgery that repairs drooping eyelids) has exploded because with the continuous use of masks what is most noticeable is the front part of the face", he pointed.
Women represent 90% of the patients who attend Dominican operating rooms.
The vast majority are mothers, according to De la Cruz.
She says that a determining factor is the fact that at this time her children are receiving distance teaching, and they also work from home.
Which allows them to undergo surgery and have a recovery without the hustle and bustle of the day to day.
According to the Dominican Society of Aesthetic and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery, 90% of patients who come to the Dominican Republic to undergo an aesthetic procedure come from the United States.
Surgeriescovid-19 Pandemic Tourism