One of the island’s top plastic surgeons is advocating the establishment of a specialist registry in light of a significant increase in the demand for body contour surgeries across the island. Senior plastic surgeon at the University Hospital of the West Indies Dr Guyan Arscott also wants the Government to format legislation that would facilitate this registry, something, he said, the Jamaica Medical Council has been working on for some time now.

The issue came to the fore at yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchangewhere Arscott told reporters that legislation to decide who can perform this procedure does not exist. Body contour surgery, Arscott said, includes surgery on the breast, liposuction of the stomach, back, buttocks, and thighs, among other areas.

“If we try to educate the public of what is available then they have a choice, and if I tell you that we have a training programme at the university with doctors…then the patient at least has a choice [about who operates on them],” he said.

“Not only can any other doctor go out there and inject whatever, but there are instances in this country where non-doctors and in fact even non-nurses fly into this country and inject all sorts of materials into buttocks all over the place,” Dr Arscott told editors and reporters at the Exchange held at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters in Kingston.(stabroek news)…[+]