Patients warned over ‘cowboy’ plastic surgeons in UAE

Residents are having cheap fillers injected into their buttocks or lips in hotel rooms or homes leaving them at risk for infection and scarring, say plastic surgeons.

DUBAI // Plastic surgeons are being called on to fix botched jobs performed by unqualified practitioners at patients' homes or in hotel rooms.

The most common cosmetic backfires doctors are being asked to patch up include injections for fuller lips and buttocks, and they warn those looking for enhancements to ensure their “doctor” is properly accredited.

“The problems I see in Dubai are mostly done by non-doctors who come to this country and perform injections of unknown substances, either on the face or the body, and usually in non-surgical facilities such as a hotel room or a kitchen,” said Dr Luiz Toledo, director of the Emirates Plastic Surgery Society.

“You’d be amazed at the number of young girls who had injections to augment lips, cheekbones, breasts or buttocks and, when asked who performed the procedure, say: ‘I was at my friend’s house and this lady was injecting her, so I had one also’.

“These criminals are usually non-doctors who mix substances with a spoon with mineral water and then perform injections. Patients have no idea of what they have been injected with.”

There may be no immediate side effects but problems can come later when patients suffer infections, rejection of the filler or scarring.

One patient had an allergic reaction to an unknown filler. The left side of her face ballooned out and she needed six months of treatment that included draining the filler and courses of cortisone and antibiotics.

Dr Sanjay Parashar, who founded the Cocoona Centre for Aesthetic Transformation, said that as demand for enhancements increased, so did the number of cowboy surgeons.

“I see a lot of such patients coming in our centre for corrections,” Dr Parashar said. “I had a 25-year-old female patient come in with big abscesses on her bottom and she had a litre of some sort of filler injected into her buttocks.”

He said she told him an expat woman had injected her at home. Those wanting cosmetic surgery should go to a member of the Emirates Plastic Surgery Society or American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and not be lured by cheap offers, he said.

“Just last week, I had three patients come to my office with abdominal pain after liposuction and they were worried they may have had an infection. All three had gone to the same place where the ‘surgeon’ charged Dh4,000 for liposuction.

“When they come with complications we treat them and we do encourage the patient to report it to the Dubai Health Authority.

“They are reluctant to come out openly because often they have done it without their family’s information and are scared. Many of them do not even know the name of the ‘doctor’, as they went because the price was very low.”

Dr Jason Diamond, a visiting plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills, California, said: “There is an old saying, ‘you get what you pay for’, and this perfectly applies to plastic surgery. In general, the best surgeon charge the highest prices.”

Vasilica Baltateanu, founder of the UAE’s first plastic surgery consultancy, Vasilica Aesthetic, said that while Dubai was attracting some of the best plastic surgeons in the world, there were a few rogues who continued to operate under the radar.

“The DHA has become very strict in relation to licensing practitioners in Dubai but greedy doctors will always find a way to go around that.”

The DHA did not comment.