A woman died on Monday after undergoing abdominal liposuction at a cosmetic clinic in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, marking the fourth serious cosmetic complication reported in the past two months, health authorities said on Tuesday.

The People’s Hospital 115 admitted 31-year-old H.T.N., hailing from the southernmost province of Ca Mau and living in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 8, in a state of cardiac arrest and with her breathing stopping at 3:20 am on Monday after she had spent nearly 14 hours in an abdominal liposuction surgery at a clinic on Nguyen Cong Tru Street in District 1.

Despite doctors’ best efforts, N. could not be saved.

According to N.’s family, the woman sought liposuction and a rhinoplasty at the cosmetic clinic on Sunday.

A representative of the clinic used N.’s mobile phone to call the family at around 8:00 am the next day, saying that she was about to die.

“Over the phone, that person said that N. had plastic surgery from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm on Sunday and went home conscious,” a family member recalled. 

“At about 10:00 pm, N. had symptoms of fatigue, turned pale, had difficulty breathing, and was taken to the People’s Hospital 115 by the beauty salon’s staff for emergency treatment after a failed attempt to give her oxygen at home." 

However, doctors at the hospital initially attributed N.’s death to circulatory arrest and respiratory arrest before her emergency admission to the hospital.

They also speculated that the victim had spent nearly 14 hours on abdominal liposuction at the clinic.

The hospital handed the patient’s body over to the Center for Forensic Assessment of Ho Chi Minh City for further verification, as well as reporting the case to inspectors of the municipal Department of Health on Tuesday afternoon.

N.’s family vented their anger on the beauty salon’s staff for telling them details of her death that were contrary to the hospital's record.

While liposuction advertisements remained on the clinic’s website as of Tuesday afternoon, a staff member replied to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper over the phone that “the establishment had been closed for a long time and not performed liposuction.”

N.’s case is the fourth serious cosmetic complication reported in Ho Chi Minh City in the past two months.

Previously, Cho Ray Hospital in the metropolis successfully saved two patients with severe complications after they underwent liposuction at cosmetic clinics in the city, with one of them needing up to six surgeries before recovering.

Before that, a 50-year-old woman living in the city’s Binh Tan District died three days after having abdominal liposuction at a cosmetic facility in Tan Binh District.

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