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Edinburgh council urges residents going to BBL surgeries offered online to contact them

26 April 2024, 09:43 | Updated: 26 April 2024, 11:38

A council has warned residents set to undergo a 'Brazilian Butt Lift' (BBL) to contact them over concerns about cosmetic surgeries being offered through social media.

The surgery - where a doctor transfers fat to a patient's bum from other parts of their body - is not banned in the UK but is considered a high-risk and possibly fatal procedure.

According to the NHS, a BBL has the highest death rate of all cosmetic surgeries. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) has previously advised its members not to carry out the procedure.

On Friday, the City of Edinburgh Council said it had learned that companies are offering patients BBLs at an unknown location over the weekend through social media posts.

Councillor Neil Ross, regulatory committee convener for the council, said they are "concerned about the potential risk to public health and would urge anyone who may have booked such a procedure this weekend to contact us as a matter of urgency".

An inquest into the death of Melissa Kerr last year found that one death occurs every 4,000 BBL procedures.

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Ms Kerr, 31, died at a private hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, in November 2019 from a fatal clot that travelled to her lungs after fat taken during a liposuction procedure was injected into her buttocks.

It comes after Ahmed Ahmed, a consultant bariatric surgeon and council member for the Royal College of Surgeons of England, warned against going abroad for cosmetic surgeries, as other countries may not have the same "rigorous" safeguards in place.

"Patients need to be closely monitored by their hospitals with routine appointments a week, three months, six months, then once a year every year," he told Sky News.

"Obviously if you are having surgery abroad, you just don't get that kind of follow-up."