Plastic surgery operations are gaining ground among Egypt’s upper class, especially actresses eager to prolong their youth, despite the serious medical errors made in this type of procedure, because it is performed by unqualified people.
The Egyptian Society of Plastic Surgeons (ESPS) blames the errors on unqualified practice by non-specialist doctors, who take it up to make a profit given the increase in the number of people, especially women, who decide to go under the knife to improve their image.
The issue had already stirred up a bitter controversy in the country over this type of procedure, rekindled last December when the famous Egyptian actress Suad Nasr fell into a coma after being anaesthetised in a hospital in the capital to undergo liposuction.
‘Although we do not have figures on the Egyptians who turn to plastic surgery, I can assure you that they have increased notably in recent years, and the non-specialist doctors who practise it number about 50’, said Dr. Ahmed Adel Nuredin, secretary general of the ESPS, in a statement.
Nuredin warned that he has asked the Ministry of Health not to authorise the practice of the specialty without the prior approval of the ESPS, after admitting that the tragedy the actress is going through, still in a coma three months later, is causing a drop in patients at cosmetic surgery clinics.
Nuredin, before making it clear that what happened to Nasr was not due to the plastic surgery but to the anaesthesia, indicated that two thirds of the patients they treat are women, who come mainly for facelifts, rhinoplasties and liposuctions on different parts of the body.
Despite the risks of unqualified practice, many artists consider it worth the risk to hold back old age, especially actresses such as Yusra, Ilham Chahin, Laila Elui and Nabila Ebied, regarded as the divas of Egyptian cinema, who have admitted to having had surgery.
‘I do not consider cosmetic surgery procedures a disgrace; on the contrary, they have become something necessary for film stars’, Yusra told the local press.
‘They give me more confidence, vitality and youth, which helps me play my roles better’, added the Egyptian actress.
Ebied expressed herself in a similar way, saying that ‘preserving beauty is the capital of any actress’ and asking ‘what is wrong?’ with resorting to cosmetic surgery so that the public sees them as beautiful.
Plastic surgery has also become a real craze among Arab singing stars, notably the Lebanese Nancy Agram, who at just 20 years of age has undergone more than ten procedures, which allowed her to star in the advertising of major companies.
The increasingly frequent cosmetic surgery operations have also sparked a debate in the religious sphere.
Abdelmoti Bayumi, a member of the Islamic Research Academy of Al-Azhar, the most important institution of Sunni Islam, told specialised sources that for the Muslim religion cosmetic surgery must be assessed according to the patient’s intention.
‘If a person undergoes this type of operation angry with God because they consider that He created them with some defect, that is something Islam condemns, whereas it is not so when someone does it satisfied with their creator and only wishes to improve their image’, Bayumi explained.
‘That is why it should be stressed here that these surgeries are questionable depending on the intentions’, he concluded.
Our advice is to consult qualified professionals, experts in the field, whose clinics are authorised by the public health authorities to carry out aesthetic medicine and cosmetic surgery treatments.
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Dr. Alfredo Fernández Blanco
The plastic surgeon Dr. Alfredo Fernandez Blanco stands out in his branch of medicine, as the best breast surgeon, he is also a pioneer in the so-called secondary surgeries or sequelae. With more than 30 years of experience and thousands of successful cases, he continues to achieve the most natural results that can be expected in a cosmetic surgery operation.
