PURSUING beauty is human nature but it cost a Shenzhen woman her life. The woman died during a double-eyelid surgery at a cosmetic hospital in Nanshan District on Dec. 17.

    The family of the woman, surnamed Huang, said she had died while having a double-eyelid surgery at the hospital. Piles of syringes and blood-soaked gauze were scattered on the ground around the operation table.

    Huang’s mother said that her daughter went to the cosmetic hospital with her husband.

    “She went into the operating room at 11 a.m. and they told me she was dying at around 2 p.m.,” said Huang’s mother, adding that the cosmetic hospital told her that Huang’s condition was too unstable to be moved to a larger hospital for emergency treatment.

    However, Huang’s family believed that Huang had already passed away when they received the phone call. The family claimed that the cosmetic hospital even destroyed the surveillance footage recorded by the CCTV cameras inside the operation room before they arrived.

    According to an operation report, besides the double-eyelid surgery, Huang also underwent two other surgeries under general anesthesia.

    The hospital said it was the anesthetization that caused Huang’s death. “The anesthetist did not come to see us and has not even offered an apology,” said Huang’s family.

    It was not the first time that Huang had a surgery at the hospital. The woman had nose surgery at the same hospital in August last year with the same doctor, known as Xie, so Huang trusted the doctor and wanted her other surgeries to be done there.

    “We don’t understand why such a small surgery could cause death and we want the hospital to release the footage to explain the cause of death,” said Huang’s mother.

    A deputy director of the hospital, surnamed Shao, responded that the shareholders of the hospital had already convened for a meeting and agreed to take full responsibility for the accident, but the hospital needed further investigation.

    Shao said that police had come to the hospital twice and the supervision department of medical institutions also came to collect evidence. The doctor in charge of Huang’s surgery is qualified with a legal license, according to Shao.

    In terms of the video footage, Shao said that no image was record while the surgery was being conducted because the hospital forgot to turn on the cameras after a holiday.

    (Zhang Qian)