THE HUGE increase in demand for cosmetic surgery has prompted one plastic surgeon to advise people to carefully vet their doctors.
Yesterday, the Harley Medical Group reported a 35 per cent annual increase in cosmetic procedures at its Irish clinic in the year to June.
Breast augmentation was the most popular procedure, followed by nose jobs and liposuction.
Men account for 20 per cent of Harley patients and were most likely to undergo nose jobs, followed by liposuction and eye bag removals, the group says. It said that 95 per cent of its Irish patients had just one procedure.
A spokeswoman said the credit crunch was unlikely to affect the cosmetic surgery industry because patients had been planning for their surgery for many years and would be unlikely to defer it.
Consultant plastic surgeon Seán Carroll said the reported increase in demand tallied with his experience at St Vincent's Hospital and the Beacon Hospital in Dublin.
"There's no question about it. There has been an increase in the numbers of people looking for cosmetic surgery over the course of the last year," he said.
"I think that it's associated with the general increase in the acceptability of cosmetic surgery."
Some patients were happy to tell their friends about it and this made the prospect more acceptable for others, Mr Carroll said.
"The increased numbers of people looking for cosmetic surgery makes it all the more important that there is better regulation of this area and that people offering this surgery are appropriately trained," he said.
Through his involvement with the Irish Association of Plastic Surgeons, he has regularly expressed concern at the lack of guidelines.
He said cosmetic surgery clinics often highlighted that their doctors were registered with the Irish Medical Council, but he said this did not mean that they had specialist cosmetic surgical expertise.
He said potential patients should ensure that their doctors were listed on the specialist register. "A lot of these people who claim to be cosmetic surgeons are not on the specialist register," he said.
Mr Carroll also advised people seeking cosmetic procedures to ensure their surgeons were living in Ireland and not flying in and out to carry out procedures. Some patients who experienced problems found that their surgeon was no longer in the country and this led to greater problems, he said.
