TAXPAYERS would fork out millions of dollars for morbidly obese Queenslanders to access free weightloss surgery under a plan launched this morning by the Australian Medical Association.
AMA Queensland President Dr Shaun Rudd said he wanted to see the procedures – including gastric banding and gastric sleeves – offered for free to morbidly obese people.
The procedures cost about $15,000.
In Queensland one in three adults is obese – and a third of them is morbidly obese.
President of the Obesity Surgery Society of Australia and New Zealand Dr George Hopkins said weightloss surgery had been brought from the “periphery to the centre” of obesity strategies.
“(With the free plan) the targeting is a difficult one, no one who is morbidly obese is more deserving than the next person who is morbidly obese,” Dr Hopkins said.
“Obesity on the street equals a morbid obesity management plan and a part of that management plan is ultimately going to involve surgery.”
He said the chance of people whose BMI hits 40 or more losing weight without surgery “is close to zero”.
He said there was significant savings for taxpayers once people lose that much weight.
“I think it’s a simplification to say that these people are just gluttons and they’ve got no control and why should the taxpayers be stepping up for them. It’s a more complicated algorithm than that,” Dr Hopkins said.
He said taxpayers were already paying for obesity.
“Medicare contributes to private practices of obesity surgeons. So we’re not breaking new ground here when taxpayers are being asked to pay for this.”
The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital already offers free surgery for morbidly obese people but Dr Hopkins said there was a “wait list for the wait list” with several hundred surgeries done each year.
Dr Rudd said both side of politics needed to support the plan and it would help cut waiting lists for obesity-related surgeries.
The plan comes in part one of the AMA’s Health Vision report.
Brisbane mum Yvette Kerr, 42, lost 30kg naturally before opting for gastric sleeve surgery in 2012 which helped her lose another 40kg.
“I don’t think I could have lost this much weight without surgery, it’s a tool,” Ms Kerr said.
She said before surgery she had high blood pressure, sore joints, low energy and was “miserable”.
It costs her about $20,000 through private health care and savings.
“It’s out of the range for the average person.”
OVERNIGHT: HEALTH experts will today call for free weight-loss surgery for obese Queenslanders.
The Australian Medical Association Queensland is expected to announce its push for radical measures to help curb the soaring rate of obesity, in its five-year Health Vision report to be released today.
It will ask for more support from the public health system for weight-loss procedures, including gastric banding, and is expected to set a target for weight loss in the state.
Obesity is a massive strain on the health care system, with figures from the Chief Health Officer’s report putting the annual cost of obesity in the state at $1.654 billion.
About 44 per cent of this is productivity loss and 24 per cent is health system costs.
Queensland has the highest rate of obesity in Australia. Pic: Thinkstock Source: News Limited
Queensland is the fattest state, with two in three adults overweight or obese — 10 per cent more than nationally.
AMA Queensland has previously pledged public support for free gastric band surgery but when contacted yesterday President Shaun Rudd declined to comment.
The Chief Health Officer’s report flags gastric bands as a strategy to conquer obesity-related diabetes and says modelling shows a 73 per cent “remission rate” for adjustable gastric banding.
Diabetes Queensland chief executive Michelle Trute said the surgery was a “weight-loss tool, not a treatment for type 2 diabetes”.
“It isn’t the silver bullet but it should be one part of a multi-tiered response to the obesity epidemic,” she said.
Heart Foundation health director Rachelle Foreman said the procedure was effective for morbidly obese people.