Cosmetic surgery deaths remain rare in Finland, Yle reports
Tuesday 8th September 2026 on 18:15 in
Finland
Deaths linked to cosmetic surgery appear to be rare in Finland, Yle reports. The risks include infections, bleeding and allergic reactions to medicines.
The Finnish Patient Insurance Centre says it has not paid compensation in any plastic surgery case during the past 10 years. The centre handles compensation for personal injuries caused in healthcare.
Compensation can be paid several years after an incident, so figures from the most recent years may still change. Finland’s Permit and Supervisory Agency also has no information on people who have died from complications of cosmetic surgery procedures.
Public attention has focused on the death of social media personality Olivia Oras during a liposuction procedure. According to information obtained by Yle’s MOT programme, Oras lost consciousness under local anaesthesia before the procedure at a beauty clinic in Helsinki and later died in hospital.
Police said on Tuesday that they would begin a preliminary investigation into Oras’s death.
Plastic surgeon Kimmo Tanttula said cosmetic surgery always carries risks, including bacterial infections and bleeding.
According to Tanttula, the most dangerous procedure in aesthetic surgery is the Brazilian butt lift, or BBL. The procedure involves transferring fat from the patient’s own body to the buttocks. Fat is first removed through liposuction, for example from the abdomen, sides or thighs.
Tanttula said the most dangerous stage is injecting the fat back into the body. If the procedure is performed without sufficient knowledge of human anatomy or with inadequate training, the fat can enter the bloodstream, cause a blood clot and result in the patient’s death.
The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery has also warned about the procedure. It says the BBL has the highest mortality risk of all cosmetic operations, with one in every 3,000 procedures statistically resulting in death.
Tanttula said surgical procedures also carry a risk of allergic reactions to medicines. He added that aesthetic surgery can result in an unsuccessful or poor outcome.