Singapore doctors concerned about increase in cheap botched aesthetic procedures
- Doctors are seeing increasing numbers of people seeking to correct procedures carried out by unlicensed operators
- Plastic surgeons warn it’s not worth patients risking infection or even death in some cases
Lured by the cheap prices advertised by home-based “aestheticians”, some Singaporeans have ended up paying more when procedures go wrong.
They then turn to qualified practitioners, who say they have seen a consistently rising number of people seeking to correct botched procedures carried out by these unlicensed operators.
A recent court case of a woman sentenced to one week’s jail for performing unlicensed home-based lip reduction surgery has cast the spotlight on a small industry of unauthorised operators offering aesthetic services.
While the patient in the court case suffered no ill-effects from the procedure, some have not been so lucky and have had to pay the price.
“Usually rectification surgery costs more than the primary surgery itself because reconstructive surgery is a lot more complex,” said Dr Leo Kah Woon, a plastic surgeon at Dr Leo Aesthetic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
“The whole cost of treatment for them ends up being more than if they come to a licensed practitioner like us to begin with.”