Proponents of the medical tourism industry can't be happy with news of unchecked plastic surgeons injecting patients with cancer-causing fillers, and other terrible descriptions of death and disfigurement in the Philippines.
The situation down there is a mess, according to a recent news account from ABS-CBN News, Intensified campaign vs fake cosmetic surgeons urged.
Unregulated, unlicensed practitioners have botched so many operations that the president of the Philippine Society for Cosmetic Surgery (PSCS), Dr. Corazon Collantes-Jose, has thrown her hands up in the air in disgust. The biggest problem, claims Collantes-Jose, is there are so many unlicensed doctors who are using "dirty" dermal fillers and other injectables that, among other things, have disfigured and even caused cancer in some patients.
[Collantes-Jose] warned that these non-doctors would not only cause disfigurement but also inject substances that can cause cancer. These are serious offenses but she lamented that up to now nobody has been put behind bars.
Lack of legislation and monitoring from the government led to the proliferation of these fake cosmetic surgeons across the Philippines, said Jose.
"They try to persuade people to have injections for monetary purposes… but why is it still flourishing? Because there’s no law to put them all in prison at the same time there’s nobody stopping the influx of these injurious substances here in the Philippines.
She said BFAD, the Department of Health and the Philippine Medical Association, should monitor the proliferation of clinics or doctors offering services that they are not licensed to provide.
Collantes-Jones' comments were most likely prompted by a recent high-profile botched-surgery story.
