An ex-soldier feared for his life after a cosmetic surgeon cut him open. Shocking new stories reveal an industry out of control. | INVESTIGATION by adele_ferguson cosmeticsurgery
into the $1.4 billion cosmetic surgery industry expose doctors like Najem. They reveal multiple serious failings in a poorly regulated sector that allows doctors with basic medical degrees and weekend courses to call themselves cosmetic surgeons.
These include penis enlargements gone wrong, patients left in excruciating pain, two women who had facelifts by a Melbourne-based cosmetic surgeon who were left disfigured, with one saying, “I look like a monster – and when I texted him for help, he said he is on leave”.into the Daniel Lanzer Clinics last October which uncovered a litany of safety and hygiene issues; and then in June we revealed questionable conduct at the country’s biggest cosmetic procedure network, Cosmos Clinic.
Other disturbing behaviour includes a video taken of anaesthetist Terrence Palmer using an operating theatre as a performance space, not wearing a mask as he sings opera beside an unconscious patient undergoing liposuction by two Lanzer doctors. Professional standards require masks to be worn during surgery. The video was recorded during COVID-19 lockdown in August 2020, which makes the cavalier attitude even worse.
The sector has been dogged by scandals for decades and has triggered a series of inquiries. Hefty profit margins, low barriers to entry and deficient regulatory oversight have created a lucrative juggernaut, with estimates the sector has doubled in size in the past five years to reach 500,000 cosmetic procedures a year. Australia has become one of the biggest consumers of cosmetic surgery in the world, on a per capita basis.
More and more medical graduates are swarming into the space, enrolling in short courses and calling themselves cosmetic surgeons, body sculptors or liposuction specialists. Weinstein agreed to stop doing liposuction and facelifts after the board found her guilty of serious professional misconduct. In 2003, she pleaded guilty to defrauding Medicare and in 2010 she agreed to surrender her medical licence and stop practising in Australia.
Professor of surgery at Melbourne University Mark Ashton says he has a constant stream of people coming to see him for revision surgery. Maddens has also launched an investigation into another big operator, Cosmos Clinics, following the investigation by this masthead andOur June investigation was delayed by three weeks as the Cosmos founderafter receiving a series of questions before publication. The story was held up for three weeks, in which time two patients ended up in hospital in Sydney after serious infections post-surgery.
‘I could feel myself losing thoughts and consciousness through the day with the amount of blood I’d lost .... but they weren’t letting on how bad it was.’“Instead of using the liposuction on my abdomen, he actually cut me to the groin,” the soldier said. “I didn’t know that was going to happen.” The elite soldier had to be cut open again and was given a green whistle to manage the pain. A green whistle is an analgesic used to relieve pain, and its associated website says it is used by sports clubs, lifesavers and ambulance paramedics for situations where “fast-acting and uncomplicated relief is needed”. An abdominoplasty does not fit that description.
The elite soldier is still recovering from the ordeal. “You think the defence force treats you bad but, I tell you what, this is the next level,” he says.uncovered some shocking practices including doing major surgeries such as gynecomastia at an unregistered facility, which is potentially illegal, nurses backdating audits by up to a year, hygiene and safety issues and the removal of 12 litres of fat and fluids from a liposuction patient in one procedure, twice the amount considered safe.
“I’ve had to organise for the nurses to get in contact with the regulators. It seems they don’t want to pick up the phone,” he says.For patients of poor cosmetic surgery, it is hard to find a suitable avenue when things go wrong. The facts are often buried by heavy-handed legal tactics such as sending unhappy patients threatening legal letters, writs or gag orders in return for refunds.
“I was left traumatised, depressed. It was the worst experience of my life,” she says. “I still don’t know why he had me followed, maybe trying to get dirt or something? I don’t know.” When she reported Najem to the regulator, he was informed of the complaint and refused to complete her aftercare.
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