Cheap Surgery Can Be Very Expensive

Cheap Surgery Can Be Very Expensive

Cut-price cosmetic surgery increasingly leaving its mark on patients

Botched cosmetic surgery by doctors who are not qualified to perform it is a growing concern for those who have to fix their mistakes.

The Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons of Southern Africa is monitoring about eight general practitioners in Gauteng and the Western Cape who have abandoned patients to suffer septic infections, hideous dents in their bodies from over-enthusiastic liposuction procedures, or hips and breasts that are different sizes.

The problem, it says, is that the Health Professions Council of SA is not doing enough to protect the unsuspecting public from unqualified doctors offering cut-price cosmetic surgery.

An executive committee member of the plastic surgeons' association, Dr Chris Snijman, said yesterday: "There are six or seven GPs that we are watching in Gauteng, with easily three or four complaints [against] each."

There was "one chap who started to fiddle in Cape Town" but this was probably "underestimating" the total.

The average cost for a tummy tuck by a qualified cosmetic surgeon is R32000. A breast implant or reduction costs about R28000 and half an hour of liposuction R14000.

But a doctor not qualified in plastic surgery could undercut the price to R7000 for half an hour of liposuction, for example.

Snijman said unsuspecting patients "shop around" before settling on a surgeon because they have to pay for the operations themselves.

"The problem is that a lot of patients feel guilty [afterwards] for going to a GP ."

But unless the problems were reported, the HPCSA and APRSA could do little about them, said Snijman.

In the last financial year, the HPCSA finalised 15 cases of negligence, 31 cases of insufficient care, 10 cases of practising outside the scope of competence and 26 cases of incompetence against doctors. But it could not say how many of these involved botched plastic surgery.

Christo Botha, a GP from Kempton Park, was found guilty in May of unprofessional conduct for performing a breast reduction and failing to recognise the ensuing complications.

Marella O'Reilly, acting CEO and registrar for the HPCSA, said: "Where the practitioner is indeed guilty [the HPCSA ensures] that he or she is appropriately penalised."

Botha was suspended from the register for one year, suspended on condition that he did not perform any more cosmetic surgery for at least three years.

Before having a cosmetic procedure, patients should verify with the HPCSA that the practitioner has the qualifications and experience, O'Reilly said.