"The sequelae brought by medical beauty are irreversible, and the doctor in charge of my surgery has left, and it is even more difficult to defend my rights." Consumer Li Chunchun now only needs to close his eyes, and the two obvious scars on his eyelids are extremely dazzling. In 2020, her double eyelid surgery at Guangzhou Zixin Plastic Surgery Hospital left an incision scar accompanied by symptoms of ptosis. However, due to insufficient evidence, difficult to define the results of surgery, and lack of legal provisions, she is still struggling to find ways to defend her rights.
Li Chunchun (pseudonym) shared the experience of double eyelid surgery failure on social platforms.
In 2023, CCTV's 3·15 evening party exposed the chaos of makeup size beauty needles, but makeup products are widely used for facial injection filling, wrinkle removal and beauty and other medical beauty behaviors. Many of the companies involved are registered in Guangdong. Recently, Nanfang Daily and Nanfang + "Rights Protection More than 315" platform have also received similar complaints.
Everyone has a heart for beauty. In recent years, the "beauty economy" has become popular, and the medical beauty market has developed rapidly, but related consumer disputes have also continued to increase. According to data from the China Consumers Association, from 2015 to 2022, the number of complaints about the medical beauty industry increased from 483 to nearly 10,000 per year. According to the content of the complaint, the current medical cosmetology mainly has problems such as illegal medical practice, over-scope operation, unclear product channels, ambiguous pricing and illegal charges, and large gaps between service quality and expectations.
CCTV's "315" party exposed that makeup products are used for medical beauty behaviors such as facial injections and fillers.
In the face of the common problems of insufficient pre-operative risk notification and complicated postoperative rights protection procedures, how should consumers protect their rights and interests? Under the trend of compliance, what "pitfalls" do consumers need to pay attention to? Nanfang Daily, Nanfang + reporters launched an investigation.
Risk undercurrents:
What is the difficulty of "assured beauty"?
After rhinoplasty did not meet expectations, fillers were not in place, double eyelid repair failed... In medical aesthetic disputes, whether the surgical effect meets expectations is one of the focal points of many disputes. On the other hand, after a dispute arises, the appraisal procedure is complicated, the process and time are long, which also makes it difficult for medical aesthetic rights protection.
In Baidu's "plastic surgery failure" bar, there are 17.9w netizens discussing how to carry out medical beauty rights protection.
In September 2022, consumer Deng Lin came to Guangzhou Shuguang Medical Beauty Hospital for hyaluronic acid wrinkle removal. "I felt like I had failed on the spot." She recalled that after surgery, there was a large bulge near the nasolabial fold on her right face. She questioned that hyaluronic acid was in the wrong position, and asked for treatment on the spot, and the doctor replied: "This is normal, it will be fine after a while." ”
The next day, she went to the hospital again to hope for a solution, but the staff claimed that it was not crooked, did not recommend dissolving, and asked her to delete the bad reviews on the public review platform. Since then, Deng Lin's customer service has stopped replying to her WeChat messages. She sent private messages over and over again on the platform, and only the word "good" replied to her. The reporter contacted Guangzhou Shuguang to inquire about Deng Lin's complaint, and the staff replied: "We can't get it exactly as consumers want." ”
Delay and avoidance is one of the ways for medical beauty institutions to deal with consumer rights protection, and persuading consumers to repair consumption twice or even multiple times is another way used by institutions.
Consumer Hong Jiali had a laser spot at Guangzhou Huamei Medical Beauty Hospital last year, and the scars on her face have not recovered months after the surgery. Hung Jiali believed that this was caused by improper operation and demanded compensation from the hospital, and the other party proposed that she carry out the filling repair at her own expense. When she looked through the contract, she found that it did not mention compensation for improper operation.
"At present, most medical beauty institutions have obviously not done enough to inform about the possible adverse consequences or complications of medical behavior, and consumers' right to know needs to be protected." Yu Guizhou, director of the health industry legal affairs department of Guangdong Xieyan Law Firm, said.
When the reporter consulted with the above-mentioned medical beauty institutions by phone, asking "whether consumers will be informed of the risks before surgery" and "how to deal with them in case of problems", the staff did not directly answer the questions, but repeatedly guaranteed: "We are a professional medical beauty institution, there will be no problems." ”
Compliance trends:
How does the "regulatory wave" work?
Nowadays, consumers' pursuit of "beauty" has unleashed huge consumption potential. With the continuous iteration of technology, the speed of product approval has accelerated, the variety of formal medical aesthetic products has been continuously enriched, and the development of the medical aesthetic industry has ushered in a new trend. According to the "2022 Medical Cosmetology Industry White Paper" released by New Oxygen, the medical cosmetology market size will maintain double-digit growth in 2022, and it is expected to be about 230 billion yuan for the whole year. At the same time, the average customer unit value of medical beauty consumption has also shown a downward trend year by year.
The size of China's medical cosmetology market in recent years, the chart is from the 2022 Medical Cosmetology Industry White Paper.
Consumer needs and concepts are also undergoing important changes - from the pursuit of "radical change" to "fine-tuning" and "natural beauty", "light medical beauty" has great growth space and potential. Data shows that in 2022, the online transaction volume of non-surgical medical beauty projects accounted for 84%.
All these have accelerated the medical aesthetics to the general public. In 2022, the scale of mainland medical beauty consumer users exceeded 20 million, and it is expected to reach 23.54 million in 2023. The industry has ushered in the wind, driven by interests, some businesses have misled consumers by promoting "appearance anxiety", and even a series of chaos such as unlicensed operations, false publicity, illegal operations, and inducing loans.
In the past two years, the medical cosmetology industry has ushered in a "regulatory wave", and compliance is becoming the "underlying consensus" of the medical cosmetology industry. Problems that have plagued consumers, such as inflated prices, false publicity, unqualified institutions, and drug and device supervision, are gradually being solved.
In June 2021, the "Special Rectification Work Plan for Combating Illegal Medical Beauty Services" was issued; In November of the same year, the "Guidelines for the Enforcement of Medical Beauty Advertising" was officially issued to effectively standardize and strengthen the supervision of medical beauty advertising. In March 2022, the "Announcement on Adjusting Part of the Content" was released, and many categories of medical aesthetic medical devices ushered in major adjustments; In October of the same year, the "Guidelines for the Governance of False Publicity and Price Violations in the Medical Cosmetology Industry" clearly pointed to the dissemination and pricing of medical cosmetology services.
The reporter combed and found that this series of policy "combination punches" for the medical cosmetology industry highlights two core trends in the current medical cosmetology supervision: first, it is more accurate, such as focusing on "real information of medical cosmetology" in 2022, which directly hits the publicity information that currently affects the development of the industry and consumer rights; The second is comprehensive, from device qualifications to medical beauty institution business qualifications, etc., gradually realizing the supervision and penetration of the entire industrial chain of the upstream, middle and downstream.
Concerns remain:
How can consumers "avoid lightning"?
Under the compliance trend, consumers' concerns remain. What should consumers do in the face of disputes such as improper operation?
"In many cases, when the medical damage is not achieved, the consumer can choose to dispute the medical service contract, and need to prove that the medical institution violated the terms of the contract. However, many consumers do not pay attention to signing a written contract with a medical beauty institution, which is one of the difficulties in protecting their rights. It is recommended that a third party should intervene, such as an administrative agency, a medical investigation commission, etc. Yu Guizhou said.
It is worth noting that not only surgical projects have risks, but also non-surgical medical aesthetic projects. "The risk of cosmetic injection is relatively low, but hyaluronic acid as an example, it can cause vascular embolism in severe cases; Although serious complications are rare with laser and radiofrequency noninvasive treatments, many treatments may also produce pigmentation and epidermal burns. Hu Zhiqi, director of plastic surgery at Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University, said.
The China Consumer Association reminds that careful selection is the "homework" that every consumer must do - when choosing a medical beauty institution, you can check the relevant business certificates of the medical beauty institution and whether the doctor has a doctor's qualification certificate and other relevant information through the official website of the health department; When signing a medical cosmetology contract, you should carefully read whether the relevant terms are reasonable to ensure your right to know and choice; Before medical cosmetology, fully communicate with the attending physician to know the risks and contraindications of the program; In addition, proof of consumption should be kept.
(At the request of interviewees, Li Chunchun, Deng Lin, and Hong Jiali are pseudonyms)
【Editor's Note】
The government work report proposed to focus on expanding domestic demand and give priority to the recovery and expansion of consumption. 2023 is the "year of consumption boost", and promoting coordinated governance of consumer rights and interests protection is of great significance to boost consumer confidence and promote high-quality development. On the occasion of the "March 15" International Consumer Rights Day, Nanfang Daily and Nanfang + launched a series of reports on "Escorting New Consumption", focusing on new consumption formats and models, and helping to promote the construction of a safer and more secure consumption environment.
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【Reporter】Xu Ningning
【Poster】Gao Xiao
【Coordinator】Xiao Wenge
【Author】 Xu Ningning; Gao Xiao; Xiao Wenge
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client