Obesity 'epidemic' weighing on ICUs

Patient transfer.

It can take six nurses -12 experienced hands grappling with great masses of flesh -to turn some of the alarmingly growing number of obese patients in Canada's intensive care units.

There are men and women with so much abdominal fat that they can't lie flat on their backs and still breathe.

They spill over the sides of a normal hospital bed and require extra-wide bariatric beds that can support up to 1,000 pounds. Some of them are so large it can be difficult for nurses to find their patients' veins to insert intravenous lines.

They may weigh 400 pounds, 500 pounds or more.

In the latest fallout from Canada's obesity epidemic, intensive care units across the country are reporting a rise in the number of patients with "morbid" or extreme body weight.

The phenomenon is posing significant challenges for the health care system, from patients too large to fit inside CT scanners or MRI machines, to what doctors have described as the "nightmare" of trying to insert breathing tubes into patients whose airways are layered in fat.

Recently, an ICU bed in Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital nearly collapsed under the weight of a patient who weighed 435 pounds.

Kudos, fatsos.