View Plastic Surgery in HCM City’s District 1 was shut down last month after an inspection campaign found it lacked a licence. Photo: plo.vn

HCM City — The HCM City Department of Health found 19 unlicensed cosmetic surgery clinics operating clandestinely during a three-week inspection campaign, Dr Nguyễn Mạnh Cường, its chief inspector, said. 

They were in luxury apartments, hotels, coffee shops, and houses, and concealed their surgical tools to elude authorities, he said.

Lê Công Vân, head of the HCM City Police Department's administrative management of social order division, suggested revoking the licences of those who could not furnish the necessary papers during the inspection.

Vân said, “I will look into [it] and report to the city police for appropriate action if the local police had indeed failed to perform their duty.”

The police and Department of Health plan to form a team to crack down on plastic surgery centres that do not have all the requisite licences or offer services they are not licensed for. 

Dr Nguyễn Phan Tú Dung, director of JW Korea Plastic Hospital, said his hospital received numerous patients with complications from cosmetic surgeries they get done at dubious clinics because of their low fees. Doctors at these centres mostly did not undergo professional cosmetic surgery training, he said.

Last year the number of such patients at his hospital was five times as in 2019, he added.

The department has launched an app called Tra cứu khám chữa bệnh that carries lists of legal and trustworthy plastic surgery centres and those penalised for lack of licences.

Another app, Y tế trực tuyến, allows people to blow the whistle on illegal centres, and inspectors then carry out raids within 24 hours. — VNS