CHENNAI – A government hospital in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has launched a clinic that offers free cosmetic surgery including breast implants to residents.
The Stanley Hospital, which was already performing free breast reconstruction for cancer survivors, will now also offer free breast alteration surgery. The procedures will be largely free for patients on low incomes, according to Times of India.
Tamil Nadu’s health minister, C Vijaya Baskar, launched the scheme in state capital Chennai earlier this week, saying: “Why should beauty treatment not be available to the poor?”
“If we don’t offer (these procedures for free) they may opt for dangerous methods or take huge loans for it,” Baskar said.
Tamil Nadu has one of India’s best healthcare delivery systems.
Breast reconstruction surgery can cost upwards of 80,000 rupees ($1,233; £880) in private hospitals.
While breast reduction and reconstruction will be free, women seeking augmentation will have to pay for implants.
The hospital’s plastic surgery unit expects to receive up to 100 patients a month for breast reconstruction surgery.
Apart from providing breast surgery, the clinic will also perform free cleft lip surgeries for children and hand transplants among other procedures.
The hospital, one of the oldest in India, is renowned for its plastic surgery department, which was first opened in 1971 and specialises in reconstructive hand surgery, according to the website.
In the past four decades, the department has undertaken around 66,000 plastic surgery procedures, according to hospital statistics.
Across India, almost 93,000 cosmetic plastic surgery procedures involving breast augmentation, implant removal or breast reduction were carried out in 2016, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
That represents around 0.007 per cent of the country’s population, a far lower rate than the 586,000 procedures carried out in the US in the same year, equating to 0.1 per cent of the population.
