The Ministry of Health (MOH) has implemented stricter rules regarding liposuction procedures. Plastic surgeons who now wish to perform the fat eliminating treatment must now comply with at least six new licensing requirements.
The new revised conditions include the following:
· A period of a minimum two weeks must pass between multiple liposuction procedures
· All staff involved in the liposuction procedure must be trained and be up to date in Basic Cardiac Life Support. All doctors performing liposuction must be certified in Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
· At least once every six months, peer reviews of liposuction procedures, including discussion of complications that arose, must be done.
· The peer review must be done by at least four doctors who are either accredited by the Accreditation Committee of Liposuction or authorized to perform liposuction in outpatient surgery facilities or hospitals.
· Every subsequent liposuction procedure on a patient must be performed in an outpatient facility or hospital and must be treated as a separate procedure.
· There must be at least one registered nurse trained monitoring sedation in the recovery area.
In accordance with the new MOH requirements, if the patient is undergoing multiple liposuction procedures, they must also be given a seven-day ‘cooling off’ period. This time allows the patient to consider the decision to undergo another procedure and is considered to be part of the two week period administered between procedures.
Liposuction, although performed frequently across the globe, is a form of surgery, and as such, can result in complications for the patient. Even having the most experienced, board certified physician working on a patient will not necessarily ensure that complications will not arise. The better your doctor, the lower your chances of anything detrimental to your health occurring, however, there is always a chance that something can go wrong.
Those seeking to have liposuction or any other form of cosmetic surgery procedure are advised to carefully and extensively research the treatment, the physician performing the procedure and the facility where the treatment will occur to ensure that all risks are kept to a minimum. Patients should always be fully aware of the potential risks and should have a plan in place in case something where to happen.
