Quebec woman's death warns of dangers of cosmetic surgery abroad

Florence McConnell had tried everything to change the way her body looked, but nothing worked the way she wanted.

In 2022, she started looking for a quick fix. She stumbled on a plastic surgeon in Morocco who offered liposuction. Her mother worked in Morocco. The surgeon had practiced in Quebec for a decade before moving to Morocco. It seemed like a perfect plan.

Then the nightmare started.

Florence's father Brian McConnell did not know his daughter was undergoing liposuction surgery until three days after her surgery, on May 13, 2022.

Unbeknownst to Florence and her family, her kidney and her liver were perforated during the surgery. Florence had been bleeding internally for three days.

The first call Brian received came around 5 a.m. on Friday. The doctors said she wasn't doing well but that everything was fine.

In the second call, doctors told Brian she was sleeping.

By the third call, Florence was dead.

"The pain is incredible," said Brian. "Every time I think of that Friday morning—I was sitting on my balcony. It was sunny, the kids were going to school. It's all hell."

According to Brian, doctors had ignored Florence's pain following the surgery. It was only after Florence's family received the autopsy report that they learned about the damaged organs.

He also claimed that doctors lied about how well the surgery went, as well as the complications following her death.

"They didn't do anything. They lied to us," he said.

Pressures of social media

Thinking about his daughter, Brian recalled how she was bullied for her weight when she was younger. He said she also constantly pushed herself to improve, which was reflected in her attempts to cultivate a perfect appearance.

"The world was in front of her. It wasn't enough for her, she needed to be more," he said. "She was a beautiful girl and her weight was very minimal, in my sense, but it wasn't enough. She needed to go to Morocco and there was influence around her to have a perfect body and get fixed up."

Old family photo shows Florence McConnell as an infant.

Brian added that he often sees plastic surgery abroad romanticized on social media.

"We have to tell our kids that this [surgery] a very serious matter and that they need to love themselves and their bodies," he said.

"At that age, we are so sensitive to others and we're in a world where you only exist for likes [on social media]."

Brian noted his daughter's time doing competitive cheerleading, "which is a sport of appearance—a lot," he said.

Dangers of surgery overseas

Getting plastic surgery abroad is increasingly popular, according to Dr. Éric Bensimon, a plastic surgeon.

"The main reason is the cost. [Surgery] in a country like Canada and the United States is more expensive than in an emerging country," said Bensimon. "Also, sometimes, surgeons here refuse a surgery because we deem it's unsafe, but someone else elsewhere will do it."

Brian said he believes that the surgery would not have taken place if it were in Canada.

"She was supposed to lose a certain amount of weight before the surgery and she didn't do that properly and technically she shouldn't have been operated," he said.

However, he claimed that the surgeons had removed much more fat than Florence had requested before the surgery.

Bensimon said Quebec has some of the strictest and most rigid regulations surrounding plastic surgery in the world.

"In Quebec, we have one of the toughest regulations in North America," he said. "To be able to do a surgery under general anesthesia in a private setting, we have to have a special permit from the ministry of health and we have to pass an accreditation process that is very tedious, long and demanding in terms of norms and regulations."

He also said going abroad for surgery comes with its own set of risks.

"You don't know the exact qualifications of the doctors, the anesthesiologists, the surgeons, the nurses, etc," he said. "You don't also really know what the standards are in terms of the facilities. Is the sterilization and the maintenance of equipment as strict than here?"

Remembering Florence

When Brian speaks about Florence, emotions and pride are hard to conceal.

"Florence was a very dynamic person. She loved everything, she was interested in everything," he said, smiling.

Florence McConnell near Lac Nicolet.

He said she had recently received a bachelor's degree in criminology from the University of Ottawa and she specialized in anti-money laundering.

"When this happened, she had a new job that was perfect for her She was so happy. She just moved in a new apartment, she had a new car, everything was amazing. She had found some peace in her life," he said.

When they held a ceremony in her honour after her death, Brian noted that hundreds of people he had never met before had come to pay their respects.

"She was an important person for a lot of people," he said.

Since her passing, speaking about Florence has been hard. But now, he uses the tragic situation to warn others.

"There is a lot of pressure of young girls and women to look a certain way and we're missing the beauty of everybody," he said. "I think as parents, we need to get more involved."

The family is now taking legal action against the clinic that operated on Florence. The Quebec coroner’s office said it is waiting on important information from Moroccan officials and plans an investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding Florence’s death.

CTV News reached out to the clinic, but has yet to hear back.