Legal Measures on Regulating Beauty Clinics Business Operation

Abstract

This article aims to study to the difficulties and obstacles in regulating the beauty clinic business operation according to the Health Facility Act, B.E. 2541, relating to the permission to operate a medical facility, the permission to operate a sanatorium,the duties and responsibilities of the license holders and the health care facility operators,the standard operating procedures for health care facility, penalties, the Ministerial Regulations, the Ministry Notifications, and other relating laws, as well as the law relatingto health care facility or beauty clinic business of foreign countries.

According to the findings, it is revealed that there are some problems in controlling beauty clinic businesses that emphasize exceedingly on the commercial operation aspect rather than the health and safety of the patients, and lack the practice of the codes of ethics. More specifically, there is not any law specifying the license holder to be responsible for monitoring a non-doctor to conduct professional practices in a health care facility, and there is not any administrative penalty for the license holders who do not provide any health care facility operator. These lead to the cases where the health care services were performed by non-doctors. Further, the fact that the standardization of beauty clinics has not been clearly regulated makes beauty clinics lack reliable and professionally accredited standards. Also, beauty clinics have not distinctively been categorized in corresponding to their actual features. Another problem in regulating the beauty clinic operators is the case where doctors cannot closely operate the business, making them incompetent health care facility business operator; however, there is neither a criminal nor administrative penalty explicitly stated. This is a gap where some assistants to professional practicing operator are asked to conduct a professional practice or to apply some medical devices to patients unethically. Particularly, it was found that most doctors in beauty clinics located in department stores rarely station in the clinics; service officers and customer assistants always misinform and deceive people and try to push them to buy their products and services, which are annoying behaviors for general people. This leads to the problem of consumer protection as consumer’ rights are restricted to some extent, the damages occurred from taking beauty services relating to medical services according to the rights of patient and customer, as well as the right to access the correct and adequate data relating to beauty clinics.

Therefore, to standardize the services of beauty clinics and to protect consumers,some recommendations are given for amending the Health Facility Act, B.E. 2541, relating to the duties and responsibilities of the license holders and administrative penalty. Further,the administrative penalty should be imposed for the health facility business operators responsible for administering the health care facilities and for those who are incompetent.The Ministry Notifications should be amended, and the Notifications of the Ministry of Public Health relating to service standardization of beauty clinics, the codes of ethics in operating beauty clinic business, and consumer protection enhancement should also be formulated.