Chinese online celebrity dies after liposuction leads to flesh-eating bacteria infection
- The celebrity suffered from a necrotising fasciitis infection after undergoing the treatment
- The Hangzhou health commission suspended the medical clinic’s business licence on Thursday
An online Chinese celebrity died on Tuesday after a botched liposuction treatment resulted in a massive skin infection and a two-month-long stay in the intensive care unit.
The woman who died, surnamed Dai, was a 33-year-old fashion blogger with around 130,000 followers on Weibo and was known by her nickname Xiao Ran.
She had the operation on May 2 to remove fat from around her waist and belly as well as enlarge her breasts.
Two days after the liposuction, she complained about severe body pains and was fighting medical shock, a sometimes serious situation caused by a lack of blood flow through the body.
Dai called an ambulance to take her to the nearby Greentown Cardiovascular Disease Hospital, according to a screenshot of a social media post written by her unidentified friend. The post was later deleted.
The doctors at Greentown said Dai suffered from multiple organ failures. On May 5, Dai’s family transferred her to another facility at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University College of Medicine.
Dai was diagnosed with a skin tissue infection and necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease that can spread rapidly and is extremely dangerous.
The woman spent two months in the ICU before she died. During that time, doctors performed two surgeries to fight back bacteria infections that spread across her entire body.
Dai’s family questioned the qualification of the liposuction doctor who performed the procedure on Dai.
They said Gao Qiang was only a junior doctor and a 2009 rule by the state health authority stipulated that surgeries intending to remove 2,000ml of fat or more should be done by a senior doctor. Dai’s surgery involved removing more than that amount of fat.
In the social media post, Dai’s friend expressed frustration with how the clinic that performed the liposuction handled the woman’s complaints.
Her friend said that a large proportion of Dai’s skin – from her breasts to her belly – had festered and swollen.
“The Huayan hospital only told her to have some pills when she told them about the pain. It did not relieve her symptoms at all,” the article said.
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Many people online expressed pity for Dai on her Weibo account this week.
“We should not blame her for electing to have the liposuction surgery. It is her choice to have the surgery,” wrote one person. “It is the fault of this rubbish hospital. You have endured too many tortures. Rest in peace, little sister.”
Dai was not the first high-profile victim of a botched cosmetics surgery in mainland China.
In October of last year, a 21-year-old woman in Changzhou of eastern China’s Jiangsu province died while in the middle of a breast and nose augmentation surgery.
The institution where she had the surgery was accused of being incapable of dealing with emergency situations.
In 2019, a 28-year-old woman died after having surgery in Nanyang a city in Henan in central China and the hospital was accused of not having the proper licensing to perform cosmetic surgeries.
In 2010, a famous TV singing competition singer died from an anaesthetic accident during cosmetic surgery.
