Ten doctors charged with the negligent homicide of a woman who died after liposuction

The judge of Cartagena's Investigative Court No. 3 ordered this Monday the prosecution of 10 doctors, nine surgeons, and one anesthesiologist for reckless homicide , following the death of a woman who underwent liposuction in December 2021.

The operation ended on the 2nd at 2:30 p.m. at the Virgen de la Caridad clinic, part of the Ribera group, and she was admitted in critical condition to the intensive care unit (ICU) of Santa Lucía Hospital at 6:30 p.m., when, given her instability, the on-call surgeons decided not to operate.

The resolution includes the tests performed since that day and emphasizes that the markers of sepsis appeared from the following day until the operation on the 7th, when the results worsened. According to the ruling, after surgery, the patient gradually stabilized, and on the 22nd, her clinical condition worsened. On January 1, a decision was made to perform another urgent operation, resulting in multiple organ failure , which led to her death.

After reporting these events and conducting investigations, the woman, "mistakenly believing" that she was in contact with a highly experienced plastic surgeon , decided to undergo liposuction, but there are indications that this was the first time with this cardiovascular specialist , who had courses in laser lipolysis, four-dimensional abdominal liposuction, and a master's degree in aesthetic, regenerative, and anti-aging medicine.

The instructor considers that there are indications of responsibility of this surgeon and the anesthesiologist who operated on her in the private clinic, given that the first " was not a specialist in plastic, aesthetic and reconstructive surgery and lacked the necessary training for the intervention" and the second, in charge of the control and monitoring of the patient, to whom it corresponded to the decision to transfer her to the ICU, should have done so three hours earlier. She refers to the indicators of sepsis , with signs of generalized infection, that are seen in the reports from the third day of admission to the ICU to assess the concurrence of responsibility in the surgeons who were on duty from that day until December 7, when the first exploratory laparotomy was performed.

The procedure has been provisionally suspended for the surgeons who treated her on the day of her admission to the ICU, "since the patient's critical condition did not warrant intervention and at that time the laboratory tests did not indicate signs of sepsis or infection," and for those who treated her after December 7.

Now, the prosecutor and the private prosecutors must request the opening of oral proceedings by filing a written indictment or dismissing the case, as well as, exceptionally, request further proceedings. The ruling is not final and may be appealed.

The judge of Cartagena's Investigative Court No. 3 ordered this Monday the prosecution of 10 doctors, nine surgeons, and one anesthesiologist for reckless homicide , following the death of a woman who underwent liposuction in December 2021.