Deal with the ugly face of beauty clinics now
- Jailing of doctors for deadly blunders underlines the need for the sector to be properly regulated, leaving scrupulous operators with nothing to fear
Another doctor has been jailed over a fatal blunder in the city’s vast unregulated network of beauty clinics. The names and the details of the cases change, but the lesson of the tragedies remains basically the same.
In the latest instance, Madam Justice Susana D’Almada Remedios said it was a classic example of the need for more regulation of private facilities offering high-risk treatments, and also time to reflect on whether they should be allowed on such premises.
Last December a doctor was jailed for 3 1/ 2 years for her role in a blunder in which one woman died and three others fell ill. Her boss is serving 12 years for introducing an unproven treatment that led to complications.
Those convictions were the first of their kind. In the most recent case a jury found that the doctor failed to take reasonable care of the woman’s safety while she was heavily sedated for liposuction at a hair transplant centre, a breach that amounted to gross negligence.
These incidents occurred in 2012 and 2014, each giving rise to calls for regulation in the interests of client and patient safety, including from this newspaper.
A government commitment to introduce a bill in the 2018-19 legislative session was derailed by a legislative backlog and the disruption caused by the social unrest of 2019. To be fair to the government it was not straightforward. The bill had to cover myriad treatments involving conflicting business interests.
6 years’ jail for Hong Kong doctor who fatally botched liposuction procedure
Finally, a blueprint targeting only medical devices came under fire for bowing to the industry’s concerns about proper regulation, which would add to costs.
The industry is clearly competitive, fuelling an appetite for investing in new equipment and procedures to attract customers. The case for tighter supervision speaks for itself. According to a Legislative Council study, the industry employed nearly 40,000 people across 10,000 premises in 2015. It points out that most treatments pass without incident.
In that case scrupulous operators and most staff have nothing to fear from regulation. And the government should not wait for another mishap before acting to protect the public.
