Herculean effort needed on obesity - AMA

Kudos, fatsos.

"The use of an RAAF aircraft to fly a morbidly obese and critically ill woman to hospital highlights the pressures the obesity epidemic puts on medical services, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) says.

The woman, who weighed about 240kg, had to be flown from Mount Isa to Townsville Hospital last Tuesday in a C-130 Hercules aircraft because she was too heavy for an ambulance or the Royal Flying Doctor Service's aircraft, authorities said.

'She was unable to be transferred by any other means so we enlisted the help of the defence force,' a Queensland Health said.

A defence spokeswoman said the operation was approved because of its 'lifesaving nature'. (sic) The cost of the operation was not available.

AMA Queensland president Ross Cartmill said the obesity epidemic was costing the health system an immeasurable amount of time and money.

'It's not just the expense though - certainly it's the bed occupancy, the prolongation of their hospitalisation and the prolongation of their recovery,' Dr Cartmill said.

But obese patients were much more likely to die of complications during and after surgery, which sometimes had to be undertaken because less invasive procedures were not available to them, he said.

He said some overweight patients had to be turned away from specific procedures, such as removing kidney stones, because medical equipment could not cope with their size.
Others were referred to dieticians before elective surgery...

'There's got to be a thorough attempt at educating the community on the ramifications of being overweight, obviously not just what goes wrong when you have to have surgery, but what's going wrong every day of their lives, shortening their lives.'"

Fly the flabby skies.