Court rejects attempt to throw out case against The Cosmetic Institute and Dr Eddy Dona

A leading plastic surgeon has failed to block claims by up to 1000 women that allegedly botched ‘one size fits all’ boob jobs caused left ­them disfigured.

A leading plastic surgeon has failed to block claims by up to 1000 women that allegedly botched “one size fits all” boob jobs caused them ­“disappointment and distress” because they were left ­disfigured.

The class action against The Cosmetic Institute clinics, 11 of the doctors operating there, and their former surgical director Dr Eddy Dona was launched after two of the women, including Amy Rickhuss, needed resuscitation on the operating table at two of the company’s clinics in Parramatta and Bondi Junction.

The women have won the fight to include in their claim the cost of surgery to rectify breast implants which they allege were positioned too high, unevenly aligned or otherwise wrongly positioned, or were asymmetrical or distorted.

They also claim the implants caused disappointment and distress, but had not actually caused a personal injury.

Lawyers for the clinics and for Dr Dona had argued in the Supreme Court to block their claims for corrective surgery.

Director of the now-closed Cosmetic Institute Dr Eddy Dona.

With a hearing of what is the first class action to take on the booming cosmetic surgery industry still months away, Justice Peter Garling found in favour of the women, and also rejected Dr Dona’s application to dismiss the claims against him on the grounds they were “hopeless”.

The women all had breast augmentation surgery at the TCI clinics in Parramatta, TCI Bondi Junction, Concord Private Hospital, Holroyd Private Hospital and at TCI Southport in Queensland.

Amy Lee Rickhuss, who had to be rushed to hospital during surgery.

The clinics have all since closed and their medical insurers have refused to cover them.

Dr Dona is alleged to have devised and trained doctors in the “one-size fits all” process, in which the women allegedly received the same round ­implants in identical operations, regardless of their size or breast shape. He has ­denied any wrongdoing.

It is alleged that 10 of the 12 doctors who operated at The Cosmetic Institute clinics were general doctors who had as little as one full weekend of training in cosmetic surgery.

While it is legal for anyone with a standard medical ­degree to perform cosmetic surgical procedures, the women claim the clinics breached consumer law through false and misleading advertising about experience the doctors who worked there didn’t have.

The women, through their lawyer Sally Gleeson, of Turner Freeman, also successfully opposed the argument by the clinics and Dr Dona that they should have known the risk of harm in having the breast operations.

The women have claimed that had they been told the truth in the advertising and promotion of the TCI Group about potential complications of their surgery, none of them would have gone through with it.