TIJUANA- Authorities of the State Commission once morest Sanitary Risks (COEPRIS), began with a verification operation of the establishments where plastic surgeries and aesthetic treatments are performed in Tijuana.
After the recent case where a woman died following undergoing liposuction in the wrong place and with an uncertified doctor, Erwin Areizaga Uribe, head of Coepris, commented that the supervision of these sites has been intensified, for which an alliance has been established with the Association of Plastic, Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgeons, with the aim of generating a list of doctors who are certified.
According to Carnina Cárdenas, president of the association of plastic and reconstructive surgeons, in Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada there are only 78 certified doctors and a much larger number of pseudo-professionals.
“We have a census, nothing more than we have a known census, imagine those that we have unknown of more than 300 usurpers of the specialty of knowing how many plastic surgeries are performed in Tijuana is materially almost impossible,” said the surgeon.
She reiterated that the doctor who performed the intervention that claimed the life of a woman at the Diagnosis clinic in Tijuana is not on the list of specialists.
For this reason, health authorities intensify verification operations and launched the “Your beauty with certainty” campaign, which gathers the necessary information through a QR code so that those who are going to undergo a procedure of this nature do so with certified doctors.
“What we want to motivate is that at the end of the day, people who go to an establishment to have a procedure of this nature have the peace of mind that they are doing it with someone certified accredited in an establishment that has all the adherence to the regulations” , the head of Coepris told TELEMUNDO 20.
The COEPRIS commissioner reported that 115 verification visits have been made to the entity’s clinics and hospitals, of which 26 have resulted in provisional suspensions and three have led to definitive closures.
According to state authorities, health tourism generates an influx of more than 2,700,000 visitors to the region.
Between 70 and 80% of the patients treated in Baja California are Americans, figures that have grown exponentially in recent years, according to the undersecretary of tourism in the entity, José Quiñones.
“It gives us around almost 13,000 million pesos of economic benefit with data from 2021 of last year and, however, we see that according to how growth has been taking place, we have a growth of 70%, growth is very booming” he declared.
It is essential that before undergoing an aesthetic procedure, patients corroborate that their doctor is truly a health professional.
“The university degree that protects you as a reconstructive plastic surgeon must be visible and also the certification that has to be exposed to the eyes of any patient And if there is not a red light and if you have 1,000 another red light, “said the President of the Association of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.
But plastic surgery professionals have warned that quack doctors are even a click away. And social networks abound with promotions and information that puts the lives of patients at risk.
“Instagram and the other social networks are overwhelmed, leaking information from people who are not qualified and that should be sanctioned, it’s like a wave that is coming, so social networks should definitely be more closely watched by law,” Eduardo said. Góngora, certified plastic surgeon.
Although they recognize that there are not enough personnel to carry out these inspections, 22 Coepris verifiers will review more than a hundred establishments in Tijuana, some of them that already have a complaint for some irregularity.
Well, this year there are six cases in Tijuana, but the figure might be much higher, according to the head of clinic and hospital verifiers of COEPRIS, Laura Leticia Salas.
“The patient does not file a complaint with the Medical Arbitration Commission or does not file a complaint with us because it is difficult for us to find out, perhaps there are more, unfortunately statistics are not the strong point, there may be many more cases, but we must promote the culture of complaint,” Salas said.
Well, they affirmed that in Baja California there is no adequate sanction for those who commit a crime once morest the general health law.
“And this state that is the national number one in health tourism, this state is the one that is missing, the number one where more plastic surgeries are performed in all of Latin America, as a city,” Cárdenas pointed out.
According to the president of the association of plastic and reconstructive surgeons in Tijuana, they are asking the authorities for exemplary sanctions for those pseudo-professionals who are putting the lives of patients at risk.
And if you are planning a procedure, there are official pages where you can consult the list of certified doctors. You can do it on the internet sites of www.ccperbc.org, www.cirugiaplastica.mx y www.cmcper.org.