Relax - Singaporeans go abroad for cheaper beauty fixes

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Singaporeans go abroad for cheaper beauty fixes

The Straits Times | Wed, Jan 20 2010

The vanity fix overseas is only a fraction of the price back home for Singaporeans.

Singaporeans go abroad for cheaper beauty fixes

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Singaporeans are the driving force behind Indonesian doctor Arthur Tjandra's success: at his 18,000 sq ft Medan clinic Elixir de Vie, up to 90 per cent of those who come in for a nip and tuck are Singaporeans.

The rest are made up of Americans, Taiwanese, Malaysians, Australians and Indonesians.

And of all the Singaporeans - mostly women in their 20s and 30s - who fly there in the hope of coming home looking better, 90 per cent are there for liposuction.

So lucrative is this foreign market that he ran a promotion last year offering a 30 per cent discount on procedures to attract foreign patients.

Of the promotion, he said: 'Our intention was to produce as many excellent results as possible and allow patients to spread it by word of mouth. We have never advertised up to now.'

The lure for Singaporeans? A vanity fix at the fraction of the price back home.

Dr Tjandra charges $650 per area while prices in Singapore generally start from $2,000.

Since he opened his clinic in November 2008, around 180 Singaporeans have passed through his doors. He said he is already booked till the end of January.

He said that he makes it compulsory for all liposuction patients to stay as in-patients for at least two to three nights in the clinic after the procedure, whether or not he had removed more than 1 litre of fat.

'If they can't stay, we reject the case,' said Dr Tjandra, who uses the traditional liposuction method of a syringe and cannula which he claims is the safest of all available methods.

An arts management student in LaSalle College of the Arts, who wanted to be known only as Denise, spent $20,000 on Vaser ultrasound-assisted liposuction in Singapore two years ago.

She had fats sucked from various parts of her body, but was upset when it resulted in dents because of uneven removal of fats.

Recently, she went to Dr Tjandra in Medan and had liposuction done on her tummy and thighs. It cost her $1,950 for the surgery, $180 on air tickets and another $120 on accommodation.

Also gunning for the Singaporean dollar is Dr Preecha Tiewtranon, chairman and chief executive officer of Preecha Aesthetic Institute, a sizeable plastic surgery outfit in Bangkok.

About 10 per cent of his patients come from Singapore, and of this, about 10 per cent are there for liposuction, he said.

Most are between the ages of 20 and 30 and pay between 100,000 and 150,000 baht (S$6,300) if the procedure is performed under general anaesthesia.

But Singaporean doctors are trying to beat the overseas competitors at their own game.

In August last year, Singaporean doctor Z Teo set up his own operating theatre in Manila and assembled a team of Filipino plastic surgeons.

While the set-up there caters to Filipinos, Singaporeans looking for some savings have been flying there, where his team performs the surgery while he supervises since he is not licensed to practise in the Philippines.

Out of the 20 Singaporeans who went for a cosmetic fix last year, about eight were for liposuction.

These patients pay 30 to 40 per cent less than what they pay here, said Dr Teo, a general practitioner.
'Here, a patient has to pay surgical fees, plus the services of an anaesthesiologist and the use of an operating theatre,' said Dr Teo, who runs Z Medical Aesthetics in Paragon and is married to a Filipino dermatologist.

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