This commentary is to speak on the current state of affairs here in the body modification community here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
At A Glance Author Vodin Contact [email protected] IAM Vodin When It just happened Artist Brent Moffatt Studio City of Winnipeg Location Winnipeg Manitoba A bylaw to increase the health standards and sterilization standards for the shops here has been in the works for several years and I will say that I myself have only been involved for the past month but in this month I have seen some piercers using the city's need to push forward a bylaw to appease the public for there own self serving ends and not taking the health and welfare of the public first in there mind.
This bylaw as it stands towards piercing and tattooing is not a bad first step even though in my view we need more technical training for piercers because this idea that we will train a 10 year old diabetic to give a needle but not a piercer just makes no sense to me as a piercer, but scarification and branding were added into this bylaw and in my personal opinion only one self serving shop had a hand in trying to slip this through.
As a prominent (not to say professional) piercer said at a city hall meeting "These procedures aren't very invasive!" tells me of his lack of understanding and lack of caring for his clientelle. Any intelligent well versed individual in this field KNOWS that scarification and branding do require special procedures and much more training due to the fact that these are much more invasive and therefore much more of a risk to a client. Myself just jumping into this bylaw noticed in about five minutes the blatent disregard for client safety when not only is there nothing about technical training but also nothing about first-aid or CPR training.
Now what is to happen when and if a client goes bad on the table? if these piercers have no medical training at all then once again their mistakes are left for our doctors to clean up, no wonder our doctor's shun our industry at this point for the most part!
Now here is where I may make a crap load of enemies but these are very serious questions in my opinion. If we send of surgeons to university for years why is it a piercer with absolutly no training what so ever can now wield a scalpel in a-lot of the same manners as said surgeon?
Now as a piercer and a very well trained person in the medical field I would love to at some point do these procedures but not until there are some proper bylaws enforced and we in the industry are made to answer for what we do.
In the military I seen people with improper training who thought they knew what they were doing actually hurt people to a much greater degree that when they started so I know from experience that if left unchecked the few bad apples here in Winnipeg will end up hurting some poor eighteen year old and in the process hurting all of us in the industry who are doing things right and safe for our clients.
For those of you that don't believe what I say to be true I challenge you to find out the qualifications of your piercer and then ask yourself "Would I accept these same qualifications from a doctor that was removing a mole or cyst from my body?" and for those that think I am blowing this out of proportion is not a piercer who does scarification doing approximentaly the same job as that doctor who removes a mole?
Now this is not to say all self taught piercers/scarification/branding/implant artists are not fantastic at their jobs for you just have to look at many who grace these very pages but please dear god's research your artist and make an informed decision and support the bylaw to enforce technical training on anyone who wishes to perform highly invasive procedures on you or anyone you love and care for.
The next thing I and many other responsible piercers are fighting against is the use of piercing guns and there inability to be autoclaved and the extreme lack of concern by city members on the sterilization of there work areas. In my personal opinion I believe they should be outlawed fully but unfortunatly this probably won't be done so a second alternative is to enforce the use of the disposable guns which are currently on the market. And to enforce all businesses that use the guns to follow all the same standards and bylaws that any and all body modification shops have to abide by.
Piercings guns and Hepatitis C are a real concern!
So anyone please feel free to email me with your views on this because it would be interesting to see the publics view on the current state of affairs in Winnipeg.