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She had once dreamed of easy, medically enhanced weight loss, but Beth’s high hopes came to an excruciating end last year with a “huge pop” — from inside her body.

Like thousands of other Canadians struggling with obesity, the Toronto woman, helped by her mother, had paid for weight-loss surgery at a private Ontario clinic, won over by marketing that promised rapid, effortless slimming.

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Within three years, though, she needed revision surgery after the restrictive band implanted around her stomach in 2008 slipped. Then she felt that fateful pop, followed by violent, breathtaking pain, and the clinic’s pledge of post-op care began to crumble, forcing her to visit two public hospitals for urgent help.

Beth spent a week in one facility before the band, which had literally fallen apart inside her abdomen, was surgically removed, all costs picked up by the provincial medicare system.

‘I was very angry and most of all disappointed, because my Mom had spent her retirement money on something that was a promise of health’

“I was very angry and most of all disappointed, because my Mom had spent her retirement money on something that was a promise of health,” said the 24-year-old, who spoke on condition her full name not be published. “Eventually [medicare] had to go in and fix everything that they messed up.”