Last year a total of 191 people underwent weight loss surgery at HSE hospitals to tackle severe obesity – a 9% increase from 2021, reports The Mirror.
They have had bariatric procedures that reduce hunger and limit the amount of food you can eat and take.
This is done when diet and exercise have not helped or when you have serious health problems because of your weight.
Many Irish patients go abroad for surgery, for example to Turkey.
But according to figures published under the Freedom of Information Act, in 2022, 48 men and 143 women underwent bariatric procedures at HSE hospitals.
This cost the state almost 1.8 million euros.
Maura Murphy, secretary of the Irish Coalition for People Living with Obesity, lost 10 kilos thanks to surgery in 2012.
“I ended up in hospital with something else wrong with me and then the consultant there sent me forward to the weight management clinic in Loughlinstown Hospital in Dublin. “I was in my early 50s getting bariatric surgery and I just knew it was my last chance saloon. I was 28 stone and I needed help. I didn’t know I was 28 stone because there was no scales to weigh me at that rate,” she said, reports The Mirror.
Bill Tormey, a consultant at Beaumont Hospital, says it is an effective treatment for people who are very obese or have health problems because of their weight.
“Successful surgery can reduce excess weight by at least 70 per cent after one year and about 74 per cent in two years and 52 per cent in 10 years. Bariatric surgery may be effective for type 2 diabetes. The diabetes may be eliminated or its severity greatly reduced in one third to half of the patients. Overall, bariatric surgery is a great benefit to many patients,” he said, reports The Mirror.
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