Aussies demand Discount on Gastric Banding
The Border Mail - Australia 30 August 2007
SEVERELY obese Australians should have access to cheap lap-band surgery to lengthen life and reduce the weight burden on the health system, obesity experts say.
Specialists are urging the Federal Government to make Medicare rebates available for the controversial stomach surgery, after international studies confirmed it could cut death rates.
Research from the US and Sweden released this week showed obese people who underwent the procedure had a mortality rate up to 40 per cent lower than their bandless counterparts.
Public health specialists say mounting evidence supports making lap-band surgery more widely and cheaply available for Australians with an extreme weight problem.
Access in the public health system is very limited.
Almost all of the 8000 people who get the adjustable band fitted each year pay up to $10,000 to have it done privately.
Professor John Dixon, from the Centre for Obesity Research at Monash University in Melbourne, said it was time to act now to make lap-band surgery publicly funded and widely available.
While it was expensive, the surgery had been proven beyond a doubt to be cost-effective, he said.
“It extends life, improves quality of life and severely limits the risk of developing diabetes, heart problems and other disease, but we have been slow to act on that knowledge,” he said.
Professor Dixon said about 8 per cent of adult Australians were obese, with a body mass index over 35, making them eligible for lap-band surgery.
“We’ve got to be realistic. That is what health is about,” he said.
