Materia Medica Malaysiana

Guidelines For Beauty Salons To Avoid Confusion

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 1 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Health is drawing up guidelines to ensure that beauty salons only provide beauty services and not administer any form of medication to their clients, Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said Wednesday.
A committee headed by Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Abdul Latif Ahmad had been set up to formulate the guidelines within three months from today, he told reporters at Aidilfitri and Deepavali functions at the ministry here.
Contacted by Bernama later, Dr Chua said the guidelines would be included in the Private Health Care Facilities and Services Act 1998.
At the ministry's post-Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Chua had directed the Medical Practitioners Division in the ministry to consider making the guidelines a part of the Act.
The division had also been directed to formulate a new Act with regard to medical devices to monitor modern beauty equipment used by beauty salons, he said.
Dr Chua said the guidelines were not meant to restrict the growth of the beauty services industry but to ensure that the people were not confused as to the services offered by the salons.
"There have been cases of salons offering services such as stem cell injections as an anti-ageing formula.
"There are some which distribute the names of doctors (who provide beauty services) but whose names are unlisted with the MMC (Malaysian Medical Council)," he said.
Dr Chua said beauty salons could only offer beauty services without any medical element such as injections which could only be administered by doctors and not beauty specialists.