11:11am Friday 19th March 2010
More and more people are having operations on the NHS to combat obesity - but is this a good use of NHS resources? Health Editor Barry Nelson meets two patients whose lives have been transformed by surgery.
IT was only as she was being wheeled towards the operating theatre on a trolley that Jane finally accepted the inevitability of what was to follow.
As a last resort, and weighing more than 24 stone at her heaviest, Jane Thompson Smith had opted to brave weight-reducing bariatric surgery.
Unable to lose weight permanently, despite repeated attempts to diet, Jane seized on the idea of having a gastric bypass as the only sure way to slim down and get her life back.
As her weight piled on, it became difficult to do everyday things like climbing stairs and getting in and out of the bath, without it becoming an exhausting ordeal.
“I was quite frightened on that trolley,”
she says. “I was thinking ‘has it come to this? Is this really the only way I am going to lose weight?’ but, I thought I can’t go on like this, I just want it over and done with.”
That was last August. Now, Jane, 44, a high-flying businesswoman who heads UK financial services for engineering consultants Amec, is feeling positively reborn after shedding five stones.
“It is hard to put into words just how much my life has changed in the six months since I had surgery,” says Jane, who works in Darlington and lives in Maltby, near Yarm.
“I have so much more energy, I feel so much better and I am able to contribute so much more.”
Her surgeon, Peter Small, from Sunderland Royal Hospital, is pleased with her progress and has told her that she should lose around 70 per cent of excess weight in the first year after her operation.
“I have lost five stones so far and it is still coming off,” beams Jane.
“I am getting fitter and healthier every day. I even took up aqua-aerobics, which I do every week. There is no way I would have been able to do that if I hadn’t had surgery.”
Jane feels very fortunate she was able to have the operation on the NHS, after convincing her surgeon that she was determined to lose weight.
But despite grumbles from some quarters about the cost – a recent survey suggested one in four believe the budget for obesity treatment should be cut – Jane believes it represents fantastic value for money.
“At first I got quite hung up about the fact that the operation cost so much, but if you look at the amount of tax I pay – and I don’t have children – I would argue that I actually contribute quite a lot to the economy.”
Jane says if she could have lost weight any other way, she would have.
“Anyway, what about the cost to the NHS of treating someone who is overweight who has diabetes or high blood pressure?” she adds.
The number of dangerously overweight patients going under the knife in the region has nearly doubled in the last couple of years.
In 2008, around 200 bariatric surgery procedures were carried out by specialist surgeons.
This year, it is expected to be closer to 400, at a cost of between £5,000 and £8,000 for each operation, and that figure is expected to increase due to the high demand in the North-East.
Mr Small, who set up the region’s first bariatric surgery team at Sunderland Royal Hospital 11 years ago, believes it is such an effective way of dealing with obesity, he would like to see an increase in NHS funding to enable more operations to take place.
Last year Mr Small, who is part of a national group called Esco (Experts in Severe and Complex Obesity), told The Northern Echo: “I challenge anybody, anywhere to produce better weight loss results. Bariatric surgery is the best way to get weight down in a group of patients who cannot lose weight in other ways.”
Esco claims that bariatric surgery is more cost-effective than the longterm treatment of chronic, obesity-related illnesses such as type two diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Patients are carefully vetted before they undergo surgery and – in the vast majority of cases – they are able to lead more active, healthier lives after having either a gastric bypass, a re-plumbing of the digestive system to reduce calorie intake, or gastric banding, where an adjustable band restricts the stomach’s size.
Scott Fiskel, 28, from Hurworth, near Darlington, has lost even more weight than Jane.
The insurance manager has lost a staggering 10 stones since he was fitted with a gastric band by Mr Small.
Before his operation last September, Scott was struggling to cope because of his massive bulk.
“At my heaviest I weighed 24 stone,”
he says. “It really affected my life, I couldn’t do much without feeling really hot and sweaty. I feel so much better now, it’s unreal. I have a normal social life again, it is fantastic.”
Scott is so impressed that he is setting up a support group for patients who have undergone gastric bypasses or banding and for individuals who are waiting to have the operation.
So far he has been contacted by five people but he hopes this number will grow as more and more patients undergo weight-loss surgery.
Scott says he now feels full after just “three or four forkfuls of food”.
But despite six months going by since his operation, he says he still instinctively buys jumbo-sized trousers when he goes to the clothing department of a supermarket.
“It’s funny, I still think I’m massive,”
he says. “I go to the supermarket and buy 44 inch waist jeans when I only need a 36 inch.”
■ Anyone living in South Durham who wants to join Scott’s support group should ring him on 07951-524202.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/trade_directory/