Tyndale: NHS needs to stop treating fat people

Apr 17 2011 by George Tyndale, Sunday Mercury

WE are told that the NHS could make big, fat savings if it allowed more big, fat patients to have stomach bands fitted.

So-called weight loss surgery in younger people would eliminate diabetes in four out of five patients, according to new research.

Because diabetes costs the health service £3,000 per patient per year for life, the £8,000 cost of the stomach tightening surgery would be recouped in three years, resulting in less cash being splashed.

And where does the study come from?

Why, from the National Bariatric Surgery Register, the body which promotes such radical treatment.

“Obesity is a 21st century epidemic for which the only effective treatment is surgery,” they say.

Well, pardon me, but it’s not.

The most effective treatment for obesity consists of not stuffing yourself with junk food, and not lounging on the sofa watching TV soaps and reality shows every night.

Taking a little exercise helps, too, even if it means hiding the remote control so you have to get off your backside to change channels.

We are all fed up of the excuses wheeled out for fatties, whose illness is almost always the result of excess.

How this for a saving? Deny overweight patients treatment, full stop.