Vietnamese media report that police have arrested the owner of an unlicensed plastic surgery centre after he allegedly threw the body of the patient who died during a botched operation into a river.
A 39-year-old woman is believed by police to have died on the operating table while breast-enlarging surgery.
“After six hours of surgery she began to convulse,” journalists said, adding that nobody has yet been found.
Police, citing information from centre owner Nguyen Manh Tuong and his employees, said the woman died despite efforts by the Hanoi centre’s staff to revive her.
According to the reports, Tuong then carried victim’s body to Thanh Tri bridge and threw it into the river. After doing so he also tried to conceal evidence of the operation.
The victim’s husband didn’t even know that his wife had been planning to have this surgery, but later on he found a receipt for the appointment, state media reported.
The surgery centre, which has been operating since April, has a business licence but no permit to carry out cosmetic surgery.
The Ministry of Health promised to co-operate with the police investigation.
Although no official statistics are available, media reports suggest the number of Vietnamese women undergoing procedures such as breast augmentation and facelifts has increased significantly.
Many doctors at state-run hospitals also run unlicensed private clinics or offer treatment from their homes.
