A woman in China has died after she had six cosmetic surgery procedures over 24 hours. - Photo: SCMP composite/Shutterstock/Douyin
BEIJING: A woman in China died after undergoing six cosmetic surgeries within 24 hours, sparking a lawsuit by her family against the clinic involved seeking 1.2 million yuan (US$168,000).
On December 9, 2020, the woman, surnamed Liu, from a rural area in Guigang, Guangxi province, southern China, visited a clinic in Nanning, where she took out a loan of more than 40,000 yuan (US$5,600) to finance six cosmetic procedures.
In the afternoon of December 9, she first underwent double eyelid surgery and a nose job, which took five hours.
This was followed by a liposuction procedure on her thighs, with the fat then injected into her face and breasts the next morning which also lasted five hours.
However, on December 11, just as Liu was discharged and on reaching the lift, she suddenly collapsed in the clinic.
Despite emergency efforts by the clinic staff, she was transferred to The Second Nanning People’s Hospital, where she was declared dead later in the afternoon.
The autopsy report showed that she died from “acute respiratory failure due to pulmonary embolism after liposuction”.
At the time, her daughter was eight years old, and her son was only four.
Liu’s family sued the clinic at Jiangnan District People’s Court of Nanning City, seeking compensation of 1.18 million yuan (US$168,000).
Her husband said: “The clinic offered me 200,000 yuan as compensation. I said that at least one million yuan should be given for a person’s death. Even if we split the responsibility, it should still be at least 500,000 yuan. I refused their private settlement, and I said we should just go to court.”
Investigations revealed that the clinic had the necessary legal documents to conduct the procedure, and the two doctors involved in Liu’s procedure were also legally licensed.
The volume of fat removed complied with medical standards.
During legal proceedings, the clinic insisted that Liu bore responsibility for understanding the risks associated with cosmetic surgery, arguing that the autopsy report alone did not substantiate any claims of malpractice.
However, despite multiple agencies commissioned by the court requesting the clinic to provide their treatment standards, it failed to comply.
In May 2021, the court initially ruled that the clinic was fully responsible for Liu’s death and ordered a compensation of more than one million yuan (US$140,000).
However, the clinic appealed, and in August last year, the court revised the compensation to 590,000 yuan, acknowledging only the partial responsibility of the clinic.
“The assessment concluded that the clinic failed to assess the risk of venous blood embolism, identifying certain errors in their medical practices that were causally related to the patient’s death,” said Li Shan, a judge at Jiangnan District People’s Court of Nanning City.
The evaluation suggested that Liu’s own physical condition might have contributed to her death, leading to a judgment of shared liability between her and the clinic.
The incident, reported by state media CCTV, has attracted more than 50 million views on social media and sparked a severe backlash against the clinic.
“Six surgeries in one day? Does the clinic have no common sense? Did they not consider the risk of complications, especially with liposuction, which can easily lead to blood clots?” one person said online.
“This clinic has no conscience! They persuaded a rural woman to take 40,000 yuan in loan for cosmetic surgery. This is outrageous! And then they botched the procedures and even haggled over compensation. Are they even human?” added another.
“Dying in the pursuit of beauty. This is really beyond extreme,” said another online observer.
According to 2020 data from iResearch Consulting, only 24 per cent of practitioners in China’s plastic surgery industry are legally licensed, with more than 100,000 operating illegally.
Illegal procedures result in around 100,000 cases of disability or death annually. - South China Morning Post
