Mum Dies After Contracting Rare Flesh-eating Bug During ‘Bum Lift’ Surgery

An inquest has heard how a mum-of-one, Jane Kiiza, 47, who wanted a new look and opted for a Brazilian ‘bum lift’ died after contracting a rare flesh-eating bug during the operation by a top Harley Street surgeon. According to DailyMail, the ‘bum lift’ triggered a cascade of infection that tore through her body, killing the otherwise healthy mum when she returned to hospital just four days after the procedure.

Senior Coroner Andrew Walker ruled Ms Kiiza’s death was a result of complications from the operation.

He said: ‘On June 19 2015 Ms Kiiza had surgery. On 22 June Ms Kiiza became unwell and returned to the hospital where the surgery took place before being transferred to another hospital where she died. I would like to add my deepest sympathy to the members of the family.’

Her inquest at North London Coroners Court heard she first visited top surgeon Dr Shailesh Vadodaria four weeks before her death to discuss liposuction and body contouring operations.

Ugandan-born Ms Kiiza, who was otherwise healthy, wanted something done with the fat on her back, legs and stomach and said she knew of the risks, the inquest into her death heard.

During surgery Dr Vadodaria removed fat from her abdomen, upper back, outer thighs and flank and injected it into different places on her bottom inserting a total of one and a quarter pints (700ml).

She was discharged the next day but just 48 hours later texted him at 6.33am in pain, writing: ‘Please call me. I had a very rough night. Where do I come to see you, the Clementine Churchill or Harley Street?’

Giving evidence at her inquest, Dr Vadodaria said he ‘immediately’ called her back as he was ‘worried about pulmonary embolism’.

As it was ‘obviously an emergency situation’ she was told to come to Clementine Churchill Hospital’s emergency care centre.

Ms Kiiza was immediately transferred to the NHS hospital Northwick Park, where she was given antibiotics, but subsequently went into septic shock.

She was rushed into theatre so surgeons could ‘cut out’ the infection, a pathogen found in soil and ground water, but remained unwell the next day.

Another operation was due to be carried out but before Ms Kiiza could be prepared for it she went into cardiac arrest and died.

Analysis of swabs revealed the infection had been caused by the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which does not normally cause an infection in healthy people.

The extremely rare flesh-eating bug was only found in Ms Kiiza’s buttocks.

Dr Vadodaria told her inquest: ‘I have never had any infection following fat extraction or liposuction so I was surprised that it had happened and that it had happened in the buttock area.’

A consultant emergency surgeon at at Northwick Park hospital, Stuart Gould, said: ‘It is carried in the nose, it’s carried in the bowel, it’s in the environment.’

Despite skin on both sides of her body being swabbed with iodine solution before the operation Mr Gould said: ‘The risks are never completely removed.’

Asked why it didn’t respond to antibiotics, he said: ‘You have to remove the source of the infection. Everything else is supportive. Although antibiotics can address the infection through the blood stream it doesn’t stop the source. The spread of this is so rapid that the only solution is to remove the source. It can spread several centimetres in an hour. It is so devastating that radical treatment is the only option.’

He added the infection was so rare he only found five published cases worldwide of it occurring after liposuction and only one case after fat transfer.

The IT consultant from Hampstead in North London is the first British casualty to die from the increasingly popular ‘curve enhancing’ cosmetic operation known as a Brazilian lift.

The procedure is said to claim lives annually in the US and South America, where it is highly demanded by women hoping to emulate the hour-glass figures of celebrities such as singer Jennifer Lopez and reality TV star Kim Kardashian.