JAKARTA - A Chinese actress, Gao Liu shared experiences about the dangers of cosmetic surgery. Gao Liu also shared photos of her damaged and black nose after the procedure went wrong.
Gao Liu is a singer and actress who has starred in many films and TV programs and has been seen as a rising star. But she hasn't been in the limelight in recent months.
Uploading on the popular social media platform, Sina Weibo, she described her months of absence due to a "cosmetic surgery incident" that left her with nasal necrosis, which means the tissue at the ends has died.
Ms. Gao shared the photos with her five million followers, sparking discussion about cosmetic surgery, which is very popular in China. She said that in October a friend of hers introduced her to a plastic surgeon at a clinic in the southern city of Guangzhou.
The actress said she decided to continue with her nose job because of suggestions she "got a little slim", and she thought this would help advance her career.
"The whole procedure lasts four hours. I think in these four hours, I will be even prettier," she told her followers.
"I didn't expect these four hours to be the beginning of a nightmare."
She said that after the procedure, her nose felt "numb and tingling" and then repeatedly became infected, although she was told she would be able to return to work in December or January.
"The skin on the tip of my nose became darker and darker, and my nose became necrotic," she said adding that she had suicidal thoughts.
Ms. Gao said she ended up in the hospital for two months and had lost 400,000 yuan in work. She said that it would be impossible to undergo further reconstructive surgery for at least a year, because of the extent of the damage.
The popular news website The Paper has shared public data from the city's Tianhe District Health Bureau, which shows that the clinic where Gao is being treated has received five administrative sanctions between March and October 2020. It is not clear what rules were violated.
A number of complaints have been made to the bureau about the clinic since Ms. Gao posted her experience sharing, according to The Paper.
Investigation
On social media, several people have asked those involved in Gao's procedures to be held accountable. Others demand better regulation of Chinese cosmetic injuries in general.
Cosmetic surgery has been popular for years in China, to the point that in 2004, the country organized a special beauty pageant for those who had undergone plastic surgery.
The procedure is very prevalent among young people. The South China Morning Post newspaper said in 2019 that nearly two-thirds of the 20 million people who underwent the procedure in the previous year were under the age of 30, and "one in five were post-millennial", were under the age of 21.
The paper said that many high school graduates choose to "have surgery before starting university, believing that it will increase their chances at work and in love."
But the increasing demand for the procedure has led to clinics operating without certificates or hiring unqualified surgeons. It is not clear what the situation is at the clinic Gao visited.
China's State Council said in April that it had "detected signs of increasing abuses" across the country and reiterated the need for operations to be carried out by "licensed medical staff".
However, as the Global Times news site notes, many Chinese citizens perceive the existing regulations as "chaotic", not to mention difficult to follow up, considering that in 2019 "the number of plastic surgery clinics that did not qualify exceeded 60,000 or six times than normal clinics."
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