Victim of a Vaughan nurse convicted of injecting toxic materials into bodies speaks out

In today’s Speakers Corner segment, a woman who is still dealing with the effects of a bad cosmetic injection procedure, six years after it happened, speaks out for the first time.

“I just made a huge mistake and now I’m paying for it.” A mistake, Brittany Rowe, said happened back in October of 2016.

Rowe, had just given birth, was suffering from post-partum depression and had an abusive partner. She tells CityNews her self-esteem was shot.

“Just [after] giving birth, I was really skinny and just depressed,” she said. “I was going through a lot and wanted to give myself a boost of confidence.”

Rowe was just 22 back then. Like most young women her age, in a society driven by social media, she wanted a picture-perfect life. She hoped a boost to her appearance, and for her that meant a bigger buttocks, would bring her out of the emotional dumps.

That’s when two of her friends told her to contact Anna Yakubovsky-Rositsan, who claimed to be a surgeon specializing in cosmetic injections.

“My friends told me about her and said, ‘She’s good.’ She does Botox and bum injections,” Rowe explained.

Yakubovsky-Rositsan, who lived in Vaughan, told Rowe she was a surgeon who worked for her father at a cosmetic medical clinic they owned in Yorkville.

“She told me her father’s practice is very busy so if I wanted to get seen faster, I could come to her home to get the butt lift done,” Rowe said.

She agreed and paid $3,000 for a procedure she hoped would change her life. It did, but in the worst way possible way.

“I noticed things were bad right after the procedure. There was a lot of unevenness in my buttocks. I was going numb in some places and there was bad pain in other areas of my body.”

Rowe shared text messages with CityNews showing she reached out to Yakubovsky-Rositsan multiple times to complain about the issues she was having. She agreed to meet her again—at a cost—to fix the issues. After three visits, Rowe said nothing was getting better.

“It was worse, the pain is very hard to live with.”

About this time, Rowe began to question what was put in her body.

She and other patients who went to Yakubovsky-Rositsan’s home were told it was PMMA, a substance not approved for use in Canada but has been known to be successful in other countries for butt lifts.

While Rowe and other women were growing skeptical, what happened next provided absolute certainty what Yakubovsky-Rositsan was injecting into bodies, was neither PMMA nor safe.

In April 2017, months after Rowe’s procedure, her friend, 23-year-old Chanel Steben, died in hospital. Steben had gone to Yakubovsky-Rositsan for a butt lift a few months prior.

“Doctors said she was injected with silicone and mineral oil,” Rowe said. “In Chanel’s case, the substances moved into her brain and lungs, killing her.”

Yakubovsky-Rositsan was arrested and charged shortly after by York police.

She was not a surgeon, but a nurse and had no license to perform any cosmetic procedures.

In text messages shown in court, she admitted to getting substances off the black market.

She eventually plead guilty to multiple charges including criminal negligence causing death and aggravated assault. She has been sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Rowe still fighting for her life

Rowe still holds a lot of anger when asked about Yakubovsky-Rositsan, but she must focus on something else, staying alive.

“I have these substances still in my body and for six years, they’ve caused immense pain and I need to get them surgically removed.”

However, one of the problems she faces is no surgeon in Canada is willing to perform the removal surgery.

“I have called everywhere. Peel police even linked us with physicians but due to the complexity of this, everyone says it’s too risky to try.”

Rowe has traveled to the U.S. multiple times in hopes of finding a surgeon who can help her. She found one in New York who is willing to remove the substances left in Rowe’s body.

The challenge now is being able to afford the procedure. “He said it will cost around $67,000 CAD.”

Rowe had tried to secure private health insurance from a company in the U.S. She paid $15,000 only to find out the insurance card she was issued was invalid.

“The company was a total scam,” she explained. “They took my money and now will not return any of my phone calls.”

Rowe is living with pain, she tells CityNews, that is unbearable due to silicone and mineral oil travelling through her body. She is crying out for help.

“Problem is, there’s no help here. The whole country is just literally refusing to help,” she said. “It’s like having a heart attack and going to the hospital and they can’t help you.”

Rowe is concerned if she does not get these substances out of her body, she could die, leaving her three children without a mom.

“I just worry one day I am going to go to sleep and not wake up and my kids are going to wake up to a dead mom,” Rowe shared.

Her friends have started a GoFundMe page to give her some help to hire the surgeon in New York. But she’s speaking out to warn others, saying risking your life for beauty isn’t always worth the cost.

“It’s not a joke. I get everyone wants to look better and feel better—me too—but now its going to cost me my life.”

She realizes the removal surgery may not leave her butt anywhere near perfect.

“I don’t care about that anymore,” she said. “When I got myself into this, I was 22, young and I am no longer at a place where my appearance is everything. You know what’s everything? Life. I want to live and be there for my kids, that’s all I want.”