Doctors help obese woman

Metabolic surgery costs covered for KZN mom after she sends email to Netcare for help

A 38-YEAR-OLD obese woman of Eshowe in KwaZulu-Natal was at her wits’ end when she wrote to a hospital asking for help to lose weight and become healthier.

Despite trying many times to lose weight, Khanyiswa Thusi said she just could not manage to shed any.

The last time she had weighed herself was in 2015, when the scale read “180kg”.

“I just keep on gaining and my stomach is so huge I don’t know how to help myself any more. I am obese,” Thusi said.

She sent an email to Netcare on December 16, 2017, asking for help.

“I can’t afford metabolic surgery, which I believe is now my only hope, people laugh at me, I don’t even go to town and it is so painful. Can you please help me to find the necessary assistance so that I can have this surgery?” she wrote.

A skilled computer technician who has been battling to find employment and has recently started a farming operation with her brother, Thusi said she knew she needed help with her weight.

As a mother of a young daughter, she was also concerned she would develop diabetes, high blood pressure or one of the many other health conditions associated with obesity, she said.

Dr Gert du Toit who practises at Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital metabolic centre, invited Thusi to a pro bono assessment consultation.

Mande Toubkin, the general manager emergency, trauma, transplant and corporate social investment at Netcare, said: “Noting the considerable health and wellness benefits that metabolic medicine and surgery can achieve for appropriate patients at a Sasso-accredited (South African Society for Surgery, Obesity and Metabolism)multidisciplinary facility, we agreed to cover all of these costs on Ms Thusi’s behalf.

“Thusi went through a rigorous process, including a thorough physical and psychological assessment, to determine her suitability as a candidate for metabolic surgery. She was deemed to be a most appropriate patient for surgical intervention and preparations for the surgery thereafter commenced. The metabolic procedure was completed by Dr Du Toit and his surgical partner, Dr Ivor Funnell, on November 27, 2018.”

Thusi has since lost 15kg.

“I am most surprised that I have had just about no pain since the operation and have taken one painkiller afterwards. I am feeling so much better and ready to take on the world with confidence,” Thusi said.

Doctors were expecting Thusi to reach a weight of between 60kg and 70kg. |