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The health industry is making moves to crack down on cosmetic surgeons following a rise in poor practice by some medical institutes – including places like The Cosmetic Institute. It’s been found that providers have been administering surgical procedures and doing so with surgeons who are unprepared for surgical complications, and this has led to cardiac arrest and other serious health issues. For The Cosmetic Institute, they have seen three young women hospitalised in the last six months due to complications related to plastic surgery.
A recent case was seen where a young woman went in to get breast augmentation surgery performed at a clinic. She had heard about the surgical provider from a friend and found that their service was good from what she had read. She went in for the procedure and then, as she says ‘He put my right implant in and then they think that some local anaesthetic that they injected might have got into my artery, they’re not too sure, and that caused my heart to stop.’ She then went on to say that when ‘they started on the left, that’s when my heart started to get irregular, and then my heart stopped while I was on the table and they performed CPR and then gave me that defib, where they shock me.’ After the surgeon who was performing the surgery managed to get her stable, he then went on to continue the procedure, which the patient is noted as saying ‘was almost finished anyway.’ The procedure that the young woman underwent was performed with a mixture of sedation and with injections of local anaesthetics – rather than the more common operation method of a general anesthetic.
The anesthetist at The Cosmetic Institute said that while it was possible that some of the local anesthetic was injected into her blood vessel, it was highly unlikely, as you would usually see a reaction immediately from this kind of exposure. As it was, it happened towards the end of her procedure which implied that her cardiac arrest was probable due to some kind of reaction to the local anaesthetic.
Her case is not alone; as we mentioned previously, there have been two other patients admitted to hospital following an epilepsy and a seizure-related instance during and after other separate cosmetic procedures.
The president of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons, (ASPS) Dr Tony Kane has gone on record as saying that there is really only one take home message from any kind of surgical complication, whether it’s a seizure or a cardiac arrest, and that is that ‘Any surgery carries risks and some of those are potentially life threatening. People need to need to consider that before having cosmetic surgery.’
The ASPS has made mention of some concerns previously where they have stated that any kind of local anesthetic theatre needs to meet all of the same criteria that exists for any other kind of general anaesthetic theatre or facility. If not, we will see more and more people dealing with potentially life-threatening complications from elective plastic surgery procedures, and that is never a good thing.
As consumers of plastic surgery, we need to be aware of the potential risks and of the potential for complications when it comes to any kind of surgery, in particular plastic surgery, as there is a lot of money to be made for providers, and the temptation to cut corners may be too strong. You can avoid any unnecessary risks by ensuring that you’re being diligent with your research and getting a second opinion! Good luck, and happy hunting for your surgical provider.