Issues With Allocations Of The Weight-Loss Surgery
Private Healthcare UK, 1.09.2010
Weight-loss surgery doctors raise the problem many patients that are eligible for the procedure, are missing it out.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) stated that weight-loss operations rose from 238 in 2000 to 2,543 in 2007. 6,953 operations took place between April 2000 and March 2008. Doctors suggest that only 1 in 200 patients eligible for such procedure is actually offered one.
Doctors are also against the way the surgery is currently allocated. The main factor that makes a patient eligible for a weight-loss surgery is based on their BMI (Body Mass Index).
Dr David Ashton, medical director of Healthier Weight, said: “BMI was developed in the 19th century and is much too crude an instrument to be used as the basis for decisions regarding potentially life-saving surgery in the 21st century. BMI discriminates on the basis of age, gender and – especially ethnicity. The latter is of great importance because certain ethnic groups have a greater risk at lower BMI’s than Caucasian populations”
With the growing obesity problem in the society nowadays, the weight-loss surgery becomes more and more popular. Patients are aware they have got a choice and a powerful tool in their weight-loss battle. They need to be treated fair while deciding if they can undergo the procedure. In order to be able to do that, procedures of allocation of the weight-loss surgery need changing.
