Jayne Fenney's house pays for weight loss surgery
A Kent woman has sold her house and moved into a mobile home to pay for more than £30,000 worth of cosmetic surgery after she lost half her weight.
Jayne Fenney, 50, from Hoo, was left with lots of excess skin after she dropped from 21 stone to 10 stone. She said the only option to regain her confidence was to pay to have surgery. "I'm over the moon... my outlook on life is completely different. Live for today, you don't know how long you're going to be here," she said. "It's alright having bricks and mortar and money, but you could work for all that and not live to see the end result of it. "You struggle and scrimp and scrape to pay a mortgage." Ms Fenney started dieting after her weight reached 21 stone, managing to get her weight down to 17 stone. She also paid £5,000 to have a gastric band fitted, which resulted in her weight dropping to 10 stone 7lbs. She was turned down for surgery on the NHS to remove her excess skin, so she then sold her house and spent £14,000 on a body lift and a further £16,000 on arm, breast and thigh lifts. Brent Tanner, her surgeon, who is based in Tunbridge Wells, said such operations were becoming more common, especially in the United States. "In my own practice it's gone from none to about five or six patients a year, but throughout the NHS and other areas it has blossomed, but the funding of course is the problem," he said. Ms Fenney said she had no regrets about selling her house. In a statement, Kent and Medway NHS said at a time of acute pressure on NHS budgets the removal of excess skin was not routinely available on the NHS.