Scottish lawmakers are being urged to move swiftly to remove Scotland’s tag as the “Wild West” of backstreet Botox surgeries.
Doctors and bosses of medic-led surgeries have condemned the current system that allows unregulated charlatans to pass themselves off as experts in Botox and fillers after completing one day courses.
The Record can reveal that some patients are travelling across the border to England after increasing accounts of botched non-surgical ops in Scotland.
Cosmetic clinic owner Vanessa Brown claims the horror stories on botched ops in Scotland is driving patients south of the border.
The Carlisle based entrepreneur has branded Scotland the “wild west” of cosmetic procedures, with unregulated chancers carrying out haphazard procedures.
Up to 90 per cent of all dermal fillers in Scotland are done by practitioners who advertise on social media – some of whom have done a one day course to obtain a supposedly professional certificate.
Brown, who runs the VL Aesthetics clinic in Carlisle, said: “We often see patients crossing over the border to receive safer, regulated treatments at our Care Quality Commission regulated clinic.
“To say it is like the Wild West in Scotland is an understatement.
“Scotland can’t afford to wait any longer – the current lack of regulation is endangering lives, and it’s only a matter of time before we face even graver consequences.
“Implementing strong regulations would ensure that only medically trained individuals can perform these high-risk procedures, protecting the public from further harm and raising the standards our industry so desperately needs.”
Brown said regulation needs to tighten up around the UK – but Scotland is the worst.
She said: “There is a reason Scotland has been branded as the worst in Europe when it comes to medical aesthetics.
“The absence of regulation has opened the floodgates for an influx of unqualified practitioners, many of whom advertise their services on social media platforms.
“Shockingly, nearly 90 per cent of patients find their practitioners through these channels, a trend that has contributed to a rise in severe complications, including infections, necrosis, and even blindness.
Among those whose lives were blighted by botched surgery was Kathryn Tumulka, 34.
The mum-of-two, from Dalkeith in Midlothian, asked for her lips to be topped up with dermal fillers at a local salon four years ago.
But instead, the qualified practitioner roughly injected her cheek with a needle of Botox – leaving her client looking as though she had suffered a stroke for nearly three months. She has backed calls for a rapid reform of the Scottish regulatory landscape..
GP and aesthetic clinician Dr Awfa Paulina, who runs a surgery in Glasgow, told how he had to rescue a bride-to-be after a botched op left her with wonky lips just before her wedding day.
The op – booked via a Facebook advert – meant her smile went up on one side and down on the other, leaving her traumatised.
Dr Paulina said: “Basically, the person didn’t put it in the right place and she came to me to fix her smile.
“When the patient smiled, the lips were misaligned and one angle went up, the other down.
“And it was just before her wedding, so in her life it was a real crisis.”
He added: “Sadly, some people treat fillers like they’re getting a haircut or getting make-up done.
“And some women who would never, ever change their hairdresser for a cheaper one.
Paulina said he is undercut by dangerous amateurs who are operating illegally and dangerously.
He said: “If I sneeze, I have to report it to the GMC. And it costs me thousands of pounds to register with Health Improvement Scotland and to maintain overhead associated with a safe and sterile clinic.
“But the question is how do you enforce people who have no professional body to answer to?
“We’re in a state now where non-medic clinic staff are even doing blood tests, giving and giving people slimming injections. And that’s surely not right.
“At present they can do a one day course and get a certificate and put it on their wall – and they can even get insurance, which can give a very false sense of security to clients.”
Dr Paulina said it is inevitable that more people will die if the Scottish Government does not get an urgent grip on the situation.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “A public consultation into non-surgical cosmetic procedures to address gaps in regulation will be published before the end of the year. This is the next step in the process of delivering our goal of ensuring robust and proportionate regulation is introduced.
“We want to ensure all cosmetic procedures in Scotland are delivered from hygienic premises by appropriately trained practitioners, applying recognised standards and using regulated products.”
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