Editorial: Risky quest for beauty

PERHAPS as a society we should take a step back from the growing mania for cosmetic surgery. Take a step back and regard the entire phenomenon of surgical enhancements with a clear view. But that may be difficult for some.

PERHAPS as a society we should take a step back from the growing mania for cosmetic surgery. Take a step back and regard the entire phenomenon of surgical enhancements with a clear view.

Which might be a little difficult for those who have undergone one of the latest cosmetic surgery fads: an eyelid-reshaping procedure that has come to light during the parliamentary inquiry into cosmetic surgery in NSW.

According to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, one victim of this process underwent a “double eyelid suture procedure” in a Sydney residential apartment.

“The treatment caused bruising and scarring to the patient and damage to her eyelids,” the Commission reported.

Jean Huang died after a boob job went wrong. Picture: Facebook

Narelle Bayon has been in permanent pain after getting breast implants in 2015. Picture: Richard Dobson

When authorities investigated the “surgeon” who had administered this treatment, they discovered that the so-called doctor in question was not registered in Australia. And then there were all the medications the individual had illegally imported, including Botox and hyaluronic acid injection preparations.

“Dodgy” doesn’t even begin to describe it. This long-overdue inquiry follows a series of investigations by The Saturday Telegraph into cosmetic procedures and the awful, wholly avoidable death of a beauty clinic manager in Chippendale last year during a procedure.

The inquiry has attracted 25 submissions from doctors, surgeons and major health bodies across NSW.

Among various groups offering evidence and testimony, besides the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, are the Australian College of Nursing, the Medical Council of NSW and the state government.

Married At First Sight star Davina Rankin urges women to check the creditional of the practitioner and to see a doctor or nurse. Picture Rohan Kelly

All are concerned about an “out-of-control cowboy industry” due to an increasing demand for cosmetic surgery and anti-ageing treatments.

One of the main problems with policing these operators, as the Medical Council’s Dr Anette Pantle points out, is that the cosmetic surgery industry is evolving so rapidly that regulators simply cannot keep up. New procedures are adopted by operators in order to “gain a competitive advantage”.

Another issue, identified by Professor Mark Ashton of the Australian Society of Plastic ­Surgeons, is that some patients “blame themselves when things go wrong and are unwilling to make a public complaint”.

Victims of dicey practices ought to come forward, both for their own wellbeing and also for the sake of others who might be lured into the unregulated cosmetic surgery trap.

Get vegies into kids’ diets

Children by and large don’t enjoy eating vegetables. This is understood. Yet children don’t make the rules. Parents do — or they should. If children refuse to eat their vegetables, as children have done since the invention of meals, the job of parents is to intervene and get those vegies eaten.

Instead, nutritionists report an increasing number of parents turning up at clinics for urgent vegetable-consumption advice, worried, with good reason, that their children will only eat jam sandwiches and the like. Come on, parents. Show some family leadership. Win the battle of the broccoli.

Money-laundering vetoed

It is a rare person indeed who is able to buy any Sydney property with cash. In an era of $1 million apartments with no parking, big-time mortgages are the standard drill.

But some investors do have that sort of cash — and more still, enabling them to not only purchase but also renovate luxury Sydney properties with no loans required. If this sounds a little suspicious, that would be because it is. Foreigners paying cash for properties was one reason the federal government is banning cash payments of more than $10,000.

There will be a new cash limit on buying homes.

“The new cash limit will prevent all buyers, including overseas buyers, from using cash when they purchase a property,” Revenue and Financial Services Minister Kelly O’Dwyer ­explains. “Large cash payments are not just an issue of tax fraud, they also allow organised criminal enterprises to wash their cash in the legitimate economy.”

By cracking down on huge cash payments, the government hopes to better trace illegally sourced income entering the economy. And also, in these cases, by further distorting the Sydney property market.