DOHA: Demand for weight loss (bariatric) surgeries is on the rise in Qatar and the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) over the past five years has conducted more than 2,800 such surgeries for adolescents and adults, an expert has disclosed.
Dr Mohammed Jeham Al Kuwari, consultant for bariatric surgery at HMC also disclosed that four people from Qatar who underwent the surgery abroad has died in less than a year.
“We came to know about four deaths in less than a year all of whom underwent the surgery at the same place,” a local Arabic daily quoted Al Kuwari as saying. He said the bariatric surgery center at HMC opened in 2010 has become popular in a short period. There were four cases in 2010 which increased to 600 next year and 800 in 2012. The cases exceeded 1000 in the following years.
The current average is 20 to 25 cases per week. It has until now performed a total of 2,891 weight loss surgeries. He said the HMC will soon start the services at Al Wakra hospital.
Waiting time for appointment for the surgery at the HMC facility has been reduced to three months. Earlier it was more than a year.
He said soon the service will be expanded to expatriates when the waiting list is further reduced. The long waiting time forced some citizens to seek treatment abroad which led to the death of four people due to poor quality of the service or the medical complications developed after the surgery. This was the reason for excluding expatriates from the service on a temporary basis.
International death rate for the surgery is one in every 1000.
He advised people to seek the surgery only in quality centers because it is very sensitive. People can live long with obesity and waiting to do the surgery in a good facility is better than risking life, he added.
Failure rate at the HMC facility is about 15 per cent mainly because the patients do not comply with the medical advice after the surgery.
The Peninsula
