I PASSED through one so-called aesthetic centre in town, where I witnessed intravenous fluids being administered.
What mesmerised me was that the lady who was injecting patients was not even trained in nursing or medicine, but was a mere practitioner in aesthetics who only had on-the-job training on how to cannulate people.
What a shocker! Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty, art and taste, encompassing the creation and appreciation of beauty. Aesthetic medicine is slowly taking the world by storm, with many people rushing to have a taste of what it is all about. Women are flocking to enhance their beauty and it seems the affluent ones are becoming increasingly entrenched in this new trend.
Popular procedures are being done lately in aesthetic medicine and these include Botox injections, dermal fillers, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, laser treatments, liposuction, hair transplantation, face-lifts and rhinoplasty. Both facial and body procedures are becoming an instant hit in the market, and that is when I came to realise that no one likes to look old.
The elderly are going for face-lifts and dermal fillers to add volume and plump up areas like lips, cheeks and under-eye areas. The younger generation prefers procedures like liposuction to remove excess fat from specific areas. Those who think they have huge breasts or big bellies usually go for such procedures to pump out fat from the implicated areas of the body.
My worry arises when aesthetic medical procedures are done by unqualified people, many of whom have only had on-the-job training. It is illegal to practise any form of medicine in this country without registration. The Health Professions Act [Chapter 27:10] permits only registered practitioners to do an act of medical procedure on patients in this country. Understandably, aesthetic medicine is very new in many countries of the world, hence legislation has gaps that need to be closed through either amendments or insertions. The Health Professions Council (HPA), being the supreme health regulatory body, should not allow unregistered people to touch patients in aesthetics when procedures like Intravenous skin-lightening drugs are given. Such procedures involve cannulating patients, administering intravenous drugs, some of which are not yet registered in the country.
It is also my advice to the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe (MCAZ) to register some of the commonly used drugs in aesthetics, unlike making unnecessary noise about drugs not usable for certain purposes, yet they are used daily. MCAZ has not approved injectable glutathione products for skin lightening, citing potential side effects on the liver, kidneys and the nervous system. This, indeed, falls on deaf ears as glutathione has become very popular, especially with ladies who want beautiful and lighter skin. It will be prudent to do more research on the drug so that people will appreciate the risks against the benefits.
The new world order is teaching us that we cannot run from aesthetic medicine and we thus need to quickly adapt to the dynamism of medicine. We only need to make sure our people are well-trained to deal with the consequences or the complications of the procedures lest we are overtaken by events of the new world.
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The Health Professions Council should weed out unregistered and unqualified personnel who are running so-called aesthetic centres where patients are admitted for drug administration and procedures are done. People should remember that disaster can strike one day when a patient reacts to some of the drugs used. Patients can go into anaphylactic shock at any time and the results may be calamitous.
