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The Bald truth of hair transplant clinics

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Hair Transplantation clinics give hope to the bald. Thinning hair and receding hairlines are right up their alley, and a lustrous mane at an “affordable price” is their promise!

They are everywhere, like hair on a full head of hair! In newspapers. On websites. In advertisements, on banners and hoardings. Or, right around the corner where you live. Hair transplantation clinics with before-and-after photographs are everywhere! They nail the lie that bald is beautiful! It’s the bald and balding that rush in to these clinics where angels fear to tread! But is it safe? Is your life at risk when you undergo this procedure? Raina Paul finds out

What they don’t reveal is the short crop of hair they hang from, that they need to register with the government to be authorised to do hair-replacement surgery. That’s because they know this: Who cares!

This applies to beauty clinics, spas and salons, too.

It took the death of a 22-year-old man to get the Karnataka government to sit up and issue a directive that all such establishments have to be registered with the government to be in business.

The 22-year-old man died in Chennai of a hair transplant procedure gone wrong. The establishment that did the procedure had a licence to run a hair salon only. The salon had qualified doctors but there was a glaring lack of necessary infrastructure and other facilities.

The Bald truth of hair transplant clinic -1Knocked off its complacent perch by this tragic incident, and taking note of the increasing number of establishments offering hair transplant in the state, the Karnataka government gave hair-transplant clinics time till September to register under the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Act.

Till then, all that such “beauty clinics” had to do was to get a trade licence.

Not anymore. Dr N Ramesh Babu, district health officer (Urban), Bangalore, stresses that it is mandatory for all private medical establishments to register. Laser therapy, micro-needling and hair grafting clinics, even those that use chemically reactive products, need to register under the KPME Act.

The Act was passed in 2007, and amended in 2010 and 2012. It was set up to monitor the standards of private medical establishments, and ensure patient-safety. Government regulation and licensing make people believe in the authenticity of the advertisements put out by these clinics. People are convinced that they are equipped to undertake such surgical procedures.

“Many salons and spas in Bangalore are not registered yet. Registration is mandatory for hair transplant clinics. Those that don’t get registered would face government action (three years in prison and a penalty of Rs:10,000). Every authorised centre has to display the registration certificate prominently in their clinics at a place where they are visible to people,” says Dr Babu.

Dr Prashant Yadav, an experienced Pune-based hair transplant surgeon, says the success rate of a transplant procedure depends upon the qualification and experience of the doctor.

Techniques and finesse are of utmost importance. If an experienced professional is doing the job, the success rate of a procedure is more than 95%, says Dr Yadav. Hair transplantation is considered non-surgical but it is a major surgery and needs a well-equipped clinic capable of attending to any complication.

Care needed

Hair transplantation is a time-consuming process. Hair follicles are taken from a part of the body mostly from the back of the head and grafted in the bald places of the head.

Dr Yadav says time needed for the procedure depends on the number of hair follicles that have to be transplanted. Most cases need about three to four hours. A team of five trained professionals is needed to work on one case, he says.

A physician specialising in plastic surgery is capable of supervising the team. It does not cost much to set up a hair transplantation facility. That is the reason that there is a proliferation of hair grafting clinics.

Customers’ casual, clinics carefree

A cursory enquiry by this reporter found that not all customers take the pain to find out which certification a clinic needs for hair transplant. Satish (name changed) had undergone the procedure in Bangalore two years ago. The 27-year-old says he had then enquired about neither the registration of the clinic nor of the doctor. He relied on online reviews of the clinic he had zeroed in on. John (name changed), an engineer from Muscat, had undergone the surgery at 26 ahead of his wedding. For him, online reviews of the clinic and feedback from friends was the be all and end all of his enquiry.

The manager of a hair transplantation centre in Kerala told this reporter that people in general are least concerned with registration. For, they are sold on the clinic’s credentials when they come across the upbeat advertisements guaranteeing a head full of hair.

The government directive was issued way back in July, giving the clinics a three-month window to get registered. But many centres are yet to comply. Vibes, a clinic that is in the business of hair transplantation, boasts of accreditation from the United States Food and Drug Administration. Contacted by this reporter, the representative of the centre refused to discuss its hair transplantation procedure. A doctor of the Bangalore-based Dermacare Clinic asserted it has all the necessary documents. Though, he did not clarify if the clinic was registered under the KPME Act. A representative of Hairline Clinic in Bangalore on the other hand was candid: No, it hasn’t been registered, yet. Go figure!

The government is aware of truant clinics trying to hoodwink the authorities by claiming to be certified by some or the other agency. Dr Babu says clinics cannot get away by claiming that they are certified by outside agencies, that registration under the KPME Act is a must. Clinics that overlook this requirement subject themselves to the risk of facing legal action. Customers who overlook this requirement, risk their lives, says Dr Babu.

(This article was published in the recent issue of Karnataka Today Magazine)

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