PROCEDURES BY THE NUMBERS

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported nearly 63.4 per cent of Australian adults (11.2 million people) were classified as overweight or obese in 2014-15, compared with only 54 per cent of the nation (7.4 million people) in 2005.

Of those aged 18 years and older, more than two-thirds (70.8 per cent) of the male population was classified as overweight or obese, and more than half (56.3 per cent) of the female population. In children aged 5-17, the ABS identified that one in four were overweight or obese.

According to the Australian Government Medicare Item Reports (Nov 2016 – Oct 2017), more than 22,700 weight-loss surgery operations were performed privately in Australia, up from 9300 in 2005-06. All of these surgeries involved a primary procedure, with the most common being the laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy – accounting for 18,106 of all procedures (79 per cent).

Of all the procedures, 79 per cent of patients were female, with the most common age group being 35-44, and 45-54 in males.

The AIHW further reported almost 20,000 patients underwent surgery in private hospitals in 2014-15, while the remaining 2700 went to public hospitals. The median waiting time for elective weight-loss procedures across Australia was 73 days, varying from 13 days in Queensland to 1803 in Tasmania. For those who underwent weight-loss surgery as their primary procedure, the nation’s median waiting time increased to 81 days.