Medics warn of obesity surgery delays

Deadly obesity is ballooning in Ireland while a hospital equipped to treat dangerously overweight patients has no available beds, it was revealed today.

A leading medic warned that 90 people needing emergency operations are languishing on a waiting list because of a lack of resources.

Professor Donal O’Shea, a consultant endocrinologist at St Columcille’s Hospital in Loughlinstown, south Dublin, said international trends show 6% of people on obesity waiting lists die over two years.

The physician said when the Loughlinstown facility was set up in 2005 there was a plan for four treatment units in each of the main health service regions around the country.

No surgery has been carried out this year at the unit because there are no beds available, according to Dr O’Shea.

Before an Oireachtas health committee, he said a quarter of the adult population is obese, while the same proportion of children are either overweight or obese.

“We were underweight in the 1940s, and I think we were probably about right in the 1960s and 1970s, when about 8% of adults and 1% of kids were in that category,” he said.

“It has just ballooned since then.”

Estimates show around 400 people require obesity surgery every year and the problem is expected to get worse.

Dr O’Shea insisted surgery was the only option for about 20% of obese patients and that it should be available like heart-surgery for both public and private patients when they need it.