The health inspectorate joins introduction week on 27 August: 175 injection complaints last year, five times the year before

Among the stands at introduction week, from 27 August, one will look like an injection clinic. It is not a clinic. It is a mobile stand run by the Dutch health inspectorate IGJ, touring student cities on purpose. What put it on the road is a set of figures: in 2025 the inspectorate received 175 complaints that injection treatments had not been carried out properly, five times as many as the year before. The same statement notes that the number of people having wrinkle-reducing or lip-filling injections has grown sharply, and that the complaints show a large share of practitioners lack the diplomas and knowledge the treatment requires.

The Dutch rule itself is short: injecting botox and fillers may only be done by a doctor, or under the supervision of a doctor with sufficient knowledge of the treatment. The difficulty is that you cannot see it from outside. The inspectorate says plainly that a salon often looks safe and professional and that practitioners present themselves as experienced, yet the complaints show that picture frequently does not hold. Of the 175, the majority concerned treatments by someone without diplomas, and some caused swelling, drooping eyes or inflammation around the lips, while 10 involved illegal botox and filler products. The inspectorate also believes the real number is higher, because shame keeps people from reporting.

• Read the price as a signal first. The inspectorate notes that clinics without a doctor often attract clients with prices well below what is usual. So ring two or three clinics in the same city that do have a doctor present, treat those quotes as your baseline, and treat an outlier far below it as a warning rather than a bargain
• On the spot, confirm one thing: whether a doctor is present while the injection is given. It is the easiest question to ask and the hardest to answer vaguely
• Use the free official self-check. It was developed by the inspectorate with Tranzo at Tilburg University and the consumer platform wiemooiwilzijn, and runs as four sets of questions covering the treatment itself, the aftercare and your own reasons for wanting it
• The mobile stand's schedule is 27 August in Nijmegen, 28 August in Amsterdam, 2 September in Zwolle and 3 September in Breda

Hokimi field note: this one is worth a read for international students in particular, because who may legally inject you is written differently in every country, and introduction week is exactly when this kind of promotion clusters. The original announcement is at source 1, the self-check at source 2, and the media report at source 3.