The Beverly Hills of the East: Plastic Surgery in Prague
by Orli Sharaby

On the surface, Prague looks all shiny and new, perfectly in tune with the ways of the modern world. I even thought we’d cleared the last hurdle when supermarkets started carrying cheddar cheese about a year and a half ago. Then my friend’s common cold turns out to be the mumps, and poof! I’m churning butter in a frock on the prairie waiting for the county doctor and hoping the injuns don’t show up. Or at least that’s the setting I felt like I should be in. Because in a First-World country in the 21st century, why are people still getting a disease that Americans have been routinely vaccinated for since 1967? Next thing you know, your upstairs neighbor’s gonna come down with Scarlet Fever, the café waitress’ll be hit with Polio, and the Bubonic Plague will be sweeping through Old Town.

At first glance, nothing seems terribly wrong with health and health care in this country – but take one step into any public hospital (and although private hospitals do exist, 91% of beds are in public ones) and you’ll think thrice about getting sick within these borders. A friend of mine, back in 2001, was admitted to Motol Hospital with an upper respiratory infection (or so we speculated, as he was never told what his actual illness was), and held there for two weeks without once being informed about his condition. He was medicated through a drip from a glass IV. His fellow wardmates, who looked very near death, were sneaking cigarettes in the bathroom. And it’s not just the archaic equipment and patients’ behavior that are out of whack. My friend the mumps victim has a sister who was sent to the hospital because of a routine bout of tonsilitis. It left her bedridden for three weeks, doctor’s orders, and when it was all over she was only one tonsil poorer. Two months later, she contracted the same illness in the remaining tonsil.

So I try to get sick as rarely as possible in this city. Which is why it came as such a shock to read yesterday that there are thousands of people who come to the Czech Republic every year to be nipped and tucked by the noteworthy doctors here. Apparently, “plastic surgery tourism” is thriving in Prague. The majority of these tourists are Brits, lured by cheap flights and the lower cost of procedures in the Czech Republic (a liposuction costs around $2500).

I’m a good Jewish New Yorker, and I know how to bargain hunt. But a red-tag nose job? No thank you. Especially with this shocking marketing material from Beautiful Beings, a British company that provides pre-packaged vanity-vaca’s in Prague:

“Everyone has something about themselves that they don't like, whether it's their profile, their body shape or their chest size. Some people just grudgingly accept what they have, while others strive to be the best person that they can be. If you are one of these people, who will not accept looking like second best, you might be the perfect candidate for plastic surgery.”

Let it be known that you heard it here first: caveat emptor.

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