Jail time sought for fake doctor
College says cosmetician offered nose job for investigator
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is asking for jail time for an Ottawa cosmetician who it says continues to practise medicine without a licence, in defiance of a court ban.
Eve Stewart, who operates Eve’s Laser Clinic on Viewmount Drive, was banned from performing controlled medical acts and administering Botox in 2014 after she performed a nose job on one client and a mini-facelift on another.
Health officials became alarmed after the woman who received the nose job went into a walk-in clinic seeking antibiotics, saying the person who did the surgery couldn’t prescribe them because she wasn’t a doctor.
Now the College of Physicians and Surgeons alleges Stewart, who has no medical training, has continued to practise controlled medical acts, including administering Botox, and has offered to perform nose jobs on clients, despite a court order banning her from doing so, according to documents filed in court. The allegations have not been proven in court.
College officials are scheduled to be in an Ottawa courtroom next week, alleging that Stewart is in contempt of court because of her ongoing actions and should be fined, sentenced to jail and required to post signs in her business and run ads notifying the public of the terms of the 2014 court order against her.
When contacted by the Citizen on Monday, Stewart denied the allegations that she was performing controlled medical acts, including injections administered to clients, but acknowledged injecting herself with Botox to treat her migraines. “If I administered to myself, what is wrong with that?”
And although her laser clinic still advertises and its voice-mail message indicates it is open, Stewart said she has been doing “absolutely nothing. The stress has taken it out of me.”
Stewart, who says she has memory issues as a result of a head injury, said she is “on disability.”
The college said it launched a new investigation against Stewart last year after an Ottawa physician reported that two of her patients had cosmetic fillers, which Stewart kept hidden in a locked box and was very secretive about, administered by Stewart. One patient told her doctor that Stewart offered to do rhinoplasty surgery on her daughter.
The college also alleges that Stewart received the Botox she used from an Ottawa doctor who is now the subject of a disciplinary hearing for professional misconduct.
The college hired a private investigator, who went to Stewart’s clinic last June, initially for laser hair removal. When the investigator asked about Botox treatment, Stewart originally told her, “I’m not allowed legally to do that. … That’s what I signed when they blackballed me … the College of Physicians and Surgeons,” according to court documents.
Stewart later agreed to contact the undercover investigator when her next Botox shipment arrived. She allegedly told the investigator that she administers Botox every week to clients. In the court documents, she claimed she was banned from doing so by the College of Physicians and Surgeons because she was charging less than doctors.
“What I was doing was perfectly legal and what they wanted was, is, illegal. To make me stop. Just because my prices are low.”
The investigator eventually told Stewart she was too nervous to go through with the procedure, but only after Stewart allegedly brought out the Botox and a needle. Stewart then told the investigator she injects herself to treat her migraines and offered the investigator alcohol to calm her down about the procedure.
The inspector later allegedly found needles, Botox containers and an intravenous drip bag, which contained an antibiotic, in the garbage outside the laser clinic.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons, which regulates the practice of medicine in Ontario, is also asking for access to Stewart’s financial statements, tax returns and financial records since May 2014 “with respect to the profits she has made by violating the 2014 order.”