Now 20 women claim they were maimed by unlicensed doctor in lip fillers scandal

Exposed: How schoolgirls are preyed on by filler cowboys From Saturday’s Mail

TWENTY women have come forward to complain about their ordeals at the hands of a fake medic exposed by the Daily Mail.

They were left with severe bruising, swelling and infections after appointments with lip filler practitioner Golam Chowdhury.

One woman even had to take a week off work because damage to her lips left her unable to talk or eat properly. Mr Chowdhury runs a clinic in Birmingham and refers to himself as a ‘qualified doctor in Bangladesh’ – though he is not registered with the General Medical Council.

Last night, he declined to apologise to the women. The complaints about Mr Chowdhury come amid growing anger at the Mail’s revelation on Saturday that amateurs with no medical training are offering to inject schoolgirls with dangerous lip fillers for as little as £59. The cos- metic treatments can cause irreversible damage but a lack of regulation means anyone is allowed to set themselves up as a practitioner.

Some beauticians target young women on social media and offer to inject groups at lip filler ‘parties’. Others offer special deals, including the chance to cut costs by sharing a syringe with a friend.

Mr Chowdhury, 41, was one of three lip filler practitioners who offered to inject 17-year-old Ellie Ducker when she visited clinics with undercover reporters.

He said her lips were lopsided and tried to convince her to have the cosmetic treatment at his Arcadia Care Clinic after she said she was too scared.

Mr Chowdhury told the teenager: ‘Your top [lip] is uneven as well, I’m sure you are aware.’

Gesturing to her left side, he added: ‘This side is bigger than this side.’ Four women have now contacted the Mail to tell of their ordeals after being treated by Mr Chowdhury. And campaign group Save Face, which raises awareness about the dangers of non-surgical cosmetic treatment, said it has had more than 20 calls about him.

Save Face compiles a register of accredited practitioners, which is approved by the Government. Yesterday, its director Ashton Collins told the Mail: ‘Mr Chowdhury has created a false persona to gain trust and confidence by masquerading as a registered doctor. His practice presents a significant risk to public safety.

‘We have received upwards of 20 complaints about Arcadia Care Clinic, seven of which were women who had undergone lip filler treatment at the clinic and suffered severe bruising, swelling and in two cases required a course of antibiotics to treat infection. This is the largest scale of unscrupu- lous and dangerous practice caused by one person in a relatively small geographical area that we have come across.’

A Government review by Sir Bruce Keogh four years ago warned that unregulated fillers was ‘a crisis waiting to happen’.

It stated that fillers ‘can have major and irreversible adverse impacts on health and wellbeing’.

Sir Bruce, who is the NHS’s national medical director, found the industry was ‘almost entirely unregulated’ and reported that patients have ‘no more protection and redress than someone buying a ballpoint pen or a toothbrush’.

He called for a change in the law to make fillers only available on prescription – but this still has not happened. Last night, Tory Health Minister Philip Dunne said: ‘It is both ethically and morally wrong for anyone under the age of 18 to be offered an unnecessary cosmetic procedure.’

Mr Chowdhury had said he was a bachelor of medicine and a bachelor of surgery.

He said he did not mislead patients into believing he was a registered medical doctor. Speaking outside his semi- detached home in Acocks Green, Birmingham, he added: ‘I’m not saying I am prescribing medicine, but I’ve done my training for Botox and carrying out lip-filling procedures. I’ve got my certificates. You don’t need to be registered with the GMC to do this.’

Mr Chowdhury writes he is a doctor on official forms and is referred to at the Arcadia Care Clinic as ‘the doctor’.

But yesterday he told the Mail: ‘I haven’t said to anyone I’m a doctor. I am a qualified doctor in Bangladesh, I completed training to do work in the UK.

‘I never mentioned that I’m a qualified doctor in the UK.’