The Legalities of

Anti-Wrinkle Injections

and Dermal Fillers

So here is a little bit about the legality of anti wrinkle injections

and dermal fillers because a lot of my patients don't actually

know this. A lot of the time we get asked my beauty therapist

had it at her clinic up the road, can’t anyone inject? The

answer is that actually no, certainly not in Australia. So anti-

wrinkle injections and dermal fillers are Schedule 4 drugs. That

means that they are available on prescription only. It's like

having a blood pressure medication, or a contraceptive pill. It

just can't just be dished out by anyone. It actually needs a

script, it needs to be written by doctor to get these

medications.

So if a beauty therapist is injecting Botox or dermal filler, it's I

guess against the regulations in Australia and they've got those

products possibly over the internet or they’ve acquired them

illegally somehow. In Australia, doctors are allowed to inject and

nurses are allowed to inject under the supervision of a doctor.

This is another loophole in the industry that probably not a lot of

people know about. Nurses that do run their own clinics need to

have a doctor prescribing for them. It might be friend in another

industry who wouldn't have a clue about cosmetic medicine and

the nurses take it upon themselves to get training done. But it

means if there are any complications from any of the treatments

at any stage, they don't have the authority to write an antibiotic

script or a dissolving script like a doctor would.

There are some amazing nurse injectors out there and indeed

and I've learned a lot from them, but there are also others who

are largely working unsupervised. This is a little bit with some

of the price difference comes in to. So one of the key

questions our call center girls get asked is how much is it to

have one unit of this in your clinic, while up the road they are

charging this amount? Why are you charging more?

One of the reasons that at VCI this does occur is that Dr. Chan

only employs cosmetic physicians, doctors who have

undertaken an extensive training program in order to do this

sort of work. Obviously doctors cost more to run than nurses

do, so that would explain one of his expenses there. If he does

have nurse injectors, they’re highly supervised nurse injectors

because he’s got lots of us running around the place and

we’ve all had extensive training under Dr. Chan.

The other thing that I guess a lot of people don't know is in

terms of picking a doctor injector is which doctors can inject?

Legally, any doctor can inject as long as they've got that

special prescription to write the script for the anti wrinkle

injections and dermal fillers. Some of those doctors might have

done an evening two hour course, other doctors might have

been in the industry for ten years. Finding out a little bit of

background about who your doctor is, who taught them, how

long they've been injecting for is I think very important for you,

to make sure you're having a nice, safe procedure performed.

Because as I said, these are Schedule 4 medications we're

working with. It’s not like having a facial with a weak

moisturizer from Priceline. This is a bit more serious.

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anti-wrinkle solutions for your face.