QEH issues fatter children warning
A RISE in childhood obesity over the past ten years is adding thousands of pounds to the cost of operations at Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Staff at the Arthur Levin Day Surgery Centre have estimated that one in ten of their paediatric patients is now sufficiently overweight to increase the risks associated with anaesthesia.
Ten years ago this number was less than one in one hundred.
In cost terms this means when an operation is performed on an obese child a second anaesthetist is required as such children are at greater risk of complications, such as respiratory problems, during surgery.
Lead clinician Dr Bev Watson said: "We looked at the body mass index for younger patients over the past ten years and there is no doubt there has been quite a noticeable rise in the number of children we would class as obese.
"We are not denying them surgery but it does cause complications, and extra cost, when we have to have a second anaesthetist present."
The problem has been highlighted in the day surgery's annual report, which warns of the of the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity and how additional resources will have to be made available.
A hospital spokesman said that at present the extra cost is "thousands of pounds, rather than hundreds of thousands" but it is still extra money the hospital has to find.
The latest problems come after the Lynn News reported last year that NHS services across West Norfolk were being stretched to the limit due to a growing obesity crisis.
The QEH had to buy reinforced beds and trolleys, while new ambulances were being fitted with specialist tail lifts to prevent paramedics being injured while trying to move obese patients around.
Patients had been getting so big that a bed for people weighing up to 70 stone was in use at the QEH, after the hospital found its standard beds for people up to 39 stone could not cope.
It also had to buy hoists, at 11,000 a time, to lift obese patients, reinforced walking frames, commodes and armchairs after health bosses revealed around half of West Norfolk's population was overweight.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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