Apology after consultant ‘fat-shames’ patient
A patient has received an apology from NHS staff after complaining of being “fat-shamed”. Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust asked one of its consultants to say sorry to the patient, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
The consultant had told the patient: “The only surgery I would book for you is bariatric (weight reduction) surgery or you’ll end up housebound and lifted out the window at the end.” It was just one of several instances of “fat-shaming” at the trust which resulted in complaints from offended patients. On another occasion, an anaesthetist told a patient that their obesity had “shaved 15 years off your life.”
A third patient was told: “It is as if you were carrying me on your back whenever you go upstairs.”
The NHS received 332 complaints across the country claiming fat-shaming by hospital staff in the last three years, according to Freedom of Information requests.
The National Obesity Forum said that obesity was “epidemic” in the country and should be treated as a disease in its own right.
In the past year, more than 15,000 people were admitted to a Kent hospital with an obesity-related diagnosis, figures show. In the 12 months to March 2018, 15,460 were admitted to hospital with a primary or secondary diagnosis of obesity - with 59% of those cases being women. A government minister said the figures highlight the “devastating consequences” of the condition for patients and the NHS. The rate of admissions across the county is 1,014 for every 100,000 residents in 2017- 18, according to the NHS data. That’s up on the previous 12 months when it was 947. Three years earlier it was 524.
Two in every three adults in the UK are said to be overweight. Obesity increases the chance of developing Type 2 diabetes, as well as heart, liver disease and several common cancers.