The growth of China’s economy has also seen a growth in many people wanting plastic surgery. While the industry will obviously welcome this, it has also been at the sharp end of malpractice law suits – a total of 20,000 so far.
In fact, this has become so widespread the Chinese Government has begun taking steps to overhaul the whole of the cosmetic surgery industry.
The campaign to clean up the medical practice in China was started by the country’s Ministry of Health who intend to continue it till April this year. Speaking with reporters Vice-Health Minister Ma Xiaowei said: “Through these efforts, the ministry will further strengthen its regulation and supervision of the industry to better safeguard consumer rights.”
Currently, plastic surgery in China is worth around £1.8 billion, with about 3 million people on the mainland having had some form of treatment in 2010 alone. So, it is worrying that so many are botched.
The problem has been too loose regulation of the industry.
One of those botched procedures was carried out on a Chinese talent show contestant Wang Bei .Unfortunately, not only did the procedure go wrong, the person died. What was worse; investigators found the surgeon carrying out the operation was not even fully qualified.
Loose regulation of the industry has also thrown up some other unfortunate problems. Many beauty salons in China now offer cosmetic surgery as part of their service. Not just that, a recent raid on 11 clinics found most didn’t conform to national standards laid down by the Ministry of Health. The standards themselves were introduced in 2002 something one surgeon, Sun Jiaming said needed looking at and updating if necessary.
Sun Jiaming also recommended that anyone thinking of getting work done should thoroughly check out the surgeon’s qualifications before hand. He told reporters: “Customers should take a rational approach to cosmetic surgery and be aware of the risks posed by going under the knife.”
As China emerges out of its pre-Communist past, many more people will take on board much of the West’s ways including the need to look good. However Chinese people at the moment are paying the price.