Cosmetic procedure leaves woman blind

The case, believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, occurred when a nurse injected a dermal filler into the woman’s face at a clinic where there was no doctor physically present.According to the ABC, the woman was taken to the ophthalmology department at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital, but nothing could be done to restore her vision in the affected eye.The treating ophthalmologist, Dr John Downie, said it was alarming that a patient could go blind from a cosmetic procedure marketed as “simple”.“The probl I get is that people perceive a cosmetic procedure to have limited or no risk, and that’s not the case,” Downie said, adding that there is a potential for blindness when the dermal filler blocks an artery.“The filler or other substance is inadvertently injected into one of the blood vessels in the skin around, or under the skin around the eye,” he said.“That material goes back along that artery to one of the bigger arteries around the eye, and then it can flow and block off the blood vessels going to the eye, or inside the eye.“It’s completely devastating. It’s like a part of you dying.”While the case is the first of its kind in Australia, the ABC reported there have been 98 other documented cases worldwide.Despite involving injecting a Schedule 4 drug classified under the Poisons Standard, fillers and anti-wrinkle injections such as Botox are often performed by nurses in shopping centres with only a brief Skype consultation with a doctor.