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THE COST OF surgeries carried out in public hospitals for the treatment of the morbidly obese increased by 50% to more than €1 million last year, according to new figures.
A total of 112 patients underwent procedures to surgically limit their food intake and reduce their weight at a cost of €1,029,908 during 2016.
The number of people undergoing such operations each year has more than doubled since 2010 as Ireland’s obesity crisis has worsened.
The country is now on course to become the fattest nation in Europe within the next decade, according to the WHO.
During the past eight years, more than €5.2 million has been spent on bariatric surgery – the term covering various types of procedures for the treatment of morbid obesity – for 637 patients in public hospitals.
The costly operations are designed to encourage weight loss by surgically altering the process of digestion or by reducing the size of a patient’s stomach in order to limit food intake.
The surgeries performed include gastric bypass procedures, which redirect food away from some parts of the stomach and small intestine so that the body absorbs fewer calories.
They also include gastric banding, in which a band is placed around the upper part of the stomach to reduce its capacity so that the patient feels full after eating a small amount of food.
Bariatric procedures are carried out almost exclusively in two public hospitals: St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, and University Hospital Galway (UHG). Some services are also provided at South Infirmary in Cork.
A spokesperson for the Health Service Executive (HSE) said that surgical interventions for morbid obesity are performed on the basis of a clinical diagnosis by a medical consultant.
“While a definite clinical need exists for those with chronic obesity, bariatric surgery is only required for the minority of obese patients (2% of the population),” they stated.
Patients are considered to be morbidly obese if they have a Body Mass Index (BMI) higher than 40.
The number of patients undergoing procedures for the treatment of morbid obesity has increased markedly in recent years. In 2009, 55 patients availed of the procedures at a cost of €450,606.
This had increased to 98 patients and a cost of €686,812 by 2015 and, last year, a total of 112 obese patients underwent bariatric surgery in public hospitals at a cost of €1,029,908.
The figures, which were released by the HSE under the Freedom of Information Act, show that each procedure cost an average of over €9,000.
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I think this article is misleading in many ways and really sensationalises the facts. I’ve been attending Loughlinstown since I was 30. I’m 38 now. This is the only weight management clinic in Ireland. Yes the ops are primarily carried out in St Vincent’s. They say in the article about how numbers have doubled etc but in fact the numbers were always there, they are just not able to do the surgeries. Funding is constantly cut. In the long term there are only 2 operations that end up saving the HSE money – Kindney transplant & Weight loss surgery. I was very lucky 2 and a half years ago to get a promotion (just because I was over weight did not mean I am lazy/unmotivated) and I took out a loan to pay for my surgery. It’s now 2 and a 1/2 years later, my loan is paid off and I’m 10 stone lighter. Unless you’re in that situation you really have no idea how freeing it is. I hope and pray for all those still on that waiting list to get to feel what I do now.
@Mayo4Sam:
Smaller Plates.. & walk to work or 1hr at night is even cheaper. We should have to paid because you like 2nds & have no self control or common sense.
@TheJeff: Such a pig ignorant opinion.. If only life and people with their various issues and problems could just follow the script eh? Life would be as simple as that opinion just expressed!!
@Dub_Right: It was accurate though, a hard pill to swallow but being overweight is the sum of many bad decisions.
@TheJeff: Do you say to people with Anorexia “Bigger Plates”?
“Bad” foods produce a reward response in the brain which, coupled with depression, makes for a bad outcome
@Dub_Right:
Excuses, Excuses, Excuses… Snowflake.. what every happen to personal Responsibility ?
@Scundered: Yea sorry life is not that simple, to eat the amount of food/calories required to become morbidly obese is not simply a matter of having an extra cake or burger, it’s as a result of many issues of which you can research for yourselves…
Less judgmental simplistic opinions would show that commentators have thought about what they are saying rather than blurt out the first thing that comes into their heads….
@TheJeff: Grow up!
@Dub_Right: I have studied it in detail, mostly emotional eating, which in turn leads to bad decisions. First clients need to let out whats going on in lifestyle and make changes to address that coupled with diet, but this notion of tiptoeing around it is wrong as that makes the client feel it is acceptable condition, whereas it can kill and they need to be afraid of that and not box away the facts, and until someone pushes them to change and lifts their self esteem again (or by themselves), the cycle continues.
@Dub_Right:
Your just enabling bad decision by taking the blame & placing outside the individual. Know 1 is holding a gun to the head of these people as they “go large” unless your a child & these folks with fat kids rolling beside them should be charge with child abuse fat kids = life long problems.
@Mayo4Sam: Fair play Mayo4Sam…your a great inspiration to a lot of people. You have made a positive step in your life and others by what evermeans you had ….well done again….
@Scundered: Well Dr. Scundered at least you claim to have a little more knowledge than thejeff who thinks by not going for the supersize meal at McDonald’s you can cure the morbidly obese!
@Dub_Right: …my point being that if you make them feel comfortable in their present state, they are very unlikely to change (or want to change enough to make it to that point of taking action).
@Dub_Right:
Don’t go supersize, take the water option & walk home Would !..
@Scundered: Yes, so in the case of a lot of morbidly obese people this requires specialist counselling and assistance from various health professionals…
@Scundered: Oh my word are you for real? Make them comfortable and they won’t change? Over the years I have gained a lot of weight and actually I never felt comfortable with it and very self conscious. I am only now becoming comfortable with the person I am and ready to make the change and work on it. It’s people like you that make people like me not want to go out and feel ashamed for what we’ve become so you sir can f*ck right off! Concentrate on your own life and mind your own business you have no idea what people are going through in their own heads which isn’t helped by ignorant people like yourself.
@TheJeff: And you can f*ck right off too you small minded individual!
@IRONYMAN: Might I suggest you go find a local schoolyard if you can’t discuss the issue and resort to hurling insults. If you have a relevant point to make, then make it and stop acting like a tantrum child.
@IRONYMAN: it’s a lot easier to shout at everyone else than take the bull by the horns and make a proper start on road to recovery, nobody likes to admit their own misgivings. But feel free to tell me why you think it’s better to tell people who have serious health problem everything is grand, when it is anything but. No good will come out of living in denial.
Let me start by saying that I don’t understand morbid obesity. I do understand that it’s not a simple lack of willpower. But these surgeries work in most cases and save a fortune in the long run. I’d rather see my tax money spent on prevention of serious illness than the costs of disability and slow death. Shame we could not do such a surgery for addictions such as drugs or alcohol. I, personally, would not want to die either way.
@Rathminder: we live in a glorious consumer society, consumption drives the economy and funds almost everything. So if that causes problems for some, that’s the price we must cover if necessary, one million euros is a fraction.
Morbid obesity is a new problem, a food addiction caused by the unregulated abuse of food science by corporations to generate more profit. These surgeries are a cost offloaded by the food industry to the public. That needs to be corrected.
@Dennis Laffey:
Either that or past generations just ate less. Probably a combination of the two actually.
@Dennis Laffey: and a sugar tax isnt going tp help either as companies will just up the amount of sweeteners. But whos to blame when society is moving into a now now world when everybody wamts things at the snap of a finger. proper food takes time to prepare.
@Avina Laaf: Past generations were more active. Food was simpler and not nearly as much processing.
One of the core subjects in school from junior infants should be nutrition and home economics.
@Sam Lean:
Sugar: Overwhelming evidence of harm caused to humans (obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, etc…)
Sweetners: Very little evidence of harm caused to humans.
Yet another example of people lacking self control and sending the bill to the taxpayer
@Mary Murphy: Do you consider Anorexia a lack of self control?
Or other versions of self harm?
@Ían Ó Ceallaigh: The subject of the article is treatment for morbid obesity, would you like to ask my opinion on every medical matter also?
@Mary Murphy: are you including smokers, drinkers and recreational drug users in this too? Or if we are going to be like this how about people who have chronic diseases like asthma / diabetes or even cystic fibrosis, should we get rid of them too? And include the elderly in there too they cost a lot of money too!
@Mary Murphy: I am asking you an armchair expert in eating disorders to comment on the exact flip of chronic overeating, in chronic under eating.
@Maria: Yes I think smokers, drinkers and drug users shouldn’t get our money either. Diabetes from over eating also…we are just giving a crutch to people to feed their habits. Deal with the consequences yourself and you will see a change in behaviour. I learned that as a kid…every action has a consequence.
@Ían Ó Ceallaigh: and all versions of self harm also. Do you have all day?
@Mary Murphy: I’m sorry Mary but obesity causes type 2 diabetes but how about people with type 1. Do we blame them? We live in a democracy so it’s for the greater good. I don’t have children but do you hear me complaining about having to pay child benefit? Do you want to end up like America?
@Mary Murphy: I am asking you an armchair expert in eating disorders to comment on the exact flip of chronic overeating, in chronic under eating.
Are you going to state that undereaters should also not be given aid?
@Ían Ó Ceallaigh: Read you original comment…you asked for all versions of self harm
@Maria: You have perfectly made my point for me…type 1 diabetes…not self inflicted…happy to pay my tax for the treatment. Type 2 (mostly, but not always self inflicted) …yes I don’t want freely and easily available treatment…none of these problems existed on the scale they do today before we had free healthcare. A healthcare system that just keeps expanding
@Mary Murphy:
Question 1: Do you consider Anorexia a lack of self control?
You are, of course, ignoring this as it completely destroys your eating disorder attack.
Question 2: Or other versions of self harm?
@Ían Ó Ceallaigh: Anorexia…no I consider it a mental health issue
All self harm….don’t have all day to go through each issue but if you want to pick a couple I can answer
Morbid obesity…if it’s a mental health issue…why are we making surgical interventions? Gastric bypass only allows more eating not tackling issue. Gastric band can stop the physical eating in the short term but a dedicated eater knows that with the use of water you can make more food pass through the smaller gap. All of these physical interventions are a waste of time if it’s really a mental health issue.
Ommm nom nom omm nom nom
Thought it would have been a lot more to be honest .
@Axl: ONE million dollars mwah ha ha.
I do not know anyone who is morbidly obese , all I know about individuals with this condition is what I have learned from tv programmes mainly from American networks and the causes are varied and complex, but the over riding picture is of deeply unhappy, unhealthy and dependent individuals who are desperate to escape the prison of their own bodies and homes, it is tragic to see relatively young people in this situation and victim blaming and shaming is not helpful ,for many the only hope is some form of surgery but for so many more the complications of obesity result in early death, ideally people should be identified in the health system earlier and treatment instigated to avoid reaching this chronic state , this is a relatively new condition in our health system and likely to see an increase in cases but with more monitoring of individuals from infancy and early childhood, there is the potential to identify and treat such conditions before they progress to life limiting and tragic outcomes.
I’m sorry 1 million is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of treating people who smoke cigarettes/ take drugs / drink alcohol before people start picking on obese people!
@Maria: In the UK it’s predicted that 35 people a day will die from drink related illness, liver cancer and alcoholic liver disease, yet in Ireland we have sporting events being sponsored by Diageo/Guinness or Heineken…. And the vintners association stalling laws that would see drink drivers banned….
People need to look beyond their narrow viewpoints…
The tone of this article is pretty hateful. Almost like you’re goating certain commenters.
@Bilbo Baggins: it’s what they do. Clickity click. I miss journalism.
@Matt Connolly: me too
Christ almighty over 1 Millan wasted on a bunch of lard-assses…who can’t figure out when to stop eating…it beggars belief.
@Robin Basstard: How much was wasted sending you to school?
@Matt Connolly: Can us taxpayers get a refund on contributions made to the previous commenters education?
Sugar is hidden in foodstuffs such as bread, ham, cheese, salad dressings, diet yoghurt and most savoury processed food. That is why there is an obesity problem.
No one sets out to.be morbidly obese no more than people who drink set out to be an alcoholic. Show a bit of empathy.
Make it illegal to be a big, fat, fatty. Anyone that is in the morbidly obese category should be forced to attend a strict boot camp where portion management, healthy cooking etc should be taught, along with grueling hikes and runs. Wouldn’t only help this generations big, fat, fatties but would also help the chunky little kids that all of these lard-arses seem to be dragging behind them.
@John Weldon: learning to cook as well as choosing the right foods, also part of the problem.
@Mary Murphy: So you think that over eating is not linked to mental health but under eating is?
Despite the numerous studies showing direct links with depression and anxiety.
Bypass surgery is a last resort for those in acute danger. Of course this country does not intervene at the earlier stages where tge underlying issue can be dealt with.
We are not talking about those of us overweight and stay at that level. We are talking about the extreme, who are killing themselves due to compulsion
I always see articles like this talking about your BMI but the BMI has been shown to be an overly simplistic measure of health and fitness many times. For example most body builders are considered to be ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’ on BMI scale! The BMI fails to take the level of body fat into consideration at all and surely your overall health is much more dependant on fat:muscle ratio rather than weight:height ratio.
Nearly 100k per operation that tells so much right there
@Paddy: ” each procedure cost an average of over €9,000.”
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