Obesity and the NHS

The past couple of day my focus was across the Pond taking in the pleasures of the Republican Party’s victory in Massachusetts’s special election!

Over on this side the news have been full of many issues, but reports about the NHS denying obese and over weight patients stomach surgery thus forcing some of them to gain more weight in order to qualify for the operation is hard to believe. But it proves that our country – under Labour- has gone postcode lottery and targets nuts. Why else will someone who is already physiology (and very possibly psychologically) at risk be encouraged by their PCT (Primary Care Trust) to increase that risk even further! Let’s forget logic for a minute, how is this healthy, cost effective or even ethical?

To get a clearer picture of what is going on the RCS (Royal College of Surgeons) launched a national registry. With about 240,000 people wanting the operation but only 4,300 getting it done via the HNS something definitely needed to be done about the current system.

Some people might think it is selfish to overeat and not look after your self then expect the tax payer to pick up the bill, but it is not always as straight forward as that. Many people grow up with the disease (yes, obesity is a disease) due to bad eating and nutritional habits – mostly unbeknown to them- and developed at an early age. That can be called child abuse, neglect or plain ignorance but nonetheless needs addressing and as patients they need help and deserve to get it. Some people are genetically prone to the illness or have a medical condition such as hormone imbalance or other defects that causes the illness. And of course there are those who are just greedy. But regardless of the causes not treating and caring for obese people is a violation of their human rights and medical negligence add to that the cost and its effects on the system long term.

Beside the obvious medical complications, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and all the difficulties that follow each one of them such as kidney and liver diseases. Psychologically the disease has very damaging effects. Its mental damage affects patients before and after the operation. For that reason the best positive outcome for patients’ mental health, obesity should be addressed and treated physically and psychologically as early as possible because prolonging treatment will only compound both the cost and the problem. The same should apply to awareness about the disease its early symptoms and preventative strategies.