Britain’s first clinic specialising in the treatment of obesity related diseases has opened to the general public. The commercial property contains specialist equipment and features designed specially to cope with patients weighing up to fifty stone, and treats mostly private patients.
The Sudbury Clinic is located in Harrow, west London, and intends to offer “dignity and humanity” to patients, many of whom will be referred to the clinic to undergo treatments such as gastric band surgeries. Advice aiming to educate those using the service about sensible eating and healthy lifestyle choices will also be promoted throughout the commercial property.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on the clinic, with a percentage of the costs going towards accessibility of facilities within the commercial property itself. For example, toilets and sofas within the building have been reinforced to make them capable of supporting weights of up to fifty stone, and the sofas are four inches higher than those found in GP surgeries and hospitals, to allow severely overweight people to use them without putting any more strain on their hips and knees than necessary.
Additionally, the doors in the commercial property have been widened to compensate for the larger waistlines of those visiting the state of the art facility. At around 4 feet wide, the entrance and internal doorways are almost double the width of a standard sized door, which measures around 2 feet 6 inches wide.
The medical technology has also been upgraded to cope with the strain of taking on heavier loads than the National Health Service is generally equipped to deal with. Weighing scales in the majority of GP practises are designed to measure the weight of patients up to 25 stone, but in the specialist commercial property the weight of patients up to eighty stone can be measured, with the results sent directly to the computer on the doctor’s desk, instead of being displayed on an electronic display on the scales themselves.
A founder of the pioneering clinic, Surgeon Shaw Somers, says the commercial property intends to lessen the embarrassment of severely obese patients who, until now, have had to cope with the pressure of visiting an NHS practise. He pointed out that overweight patients are often left distressed by visits to their doctor’s waiting room, as “normal-sized people just point, or talk about them.”
He continued “There’s nothing more embarrassing than an overweight person going to a normal clinic, squeezing into a chair and the legs buckle. That has happened in some NHS clinics we’ve worked in.
“We feel this was an investment worth making. There’s an epidemic of obesity in the UK.”
Around forty per cent of those working at the Sudbury Clinic have, themselves, been through a weight loss programme, or have had surgery to cope with a weight related issue, and believe that they can help others turn their lives around by visiting the commercial property. However, with a price tag of £6,500 on a gastric band operation, is this simply a money making scheme targeted at the growing obesity industry in the UK?
Do you think a specialist obesity clinic in the UK will encourage healthy eating in patients, or are gastric band surgeries a “quick fix” for people unwilling to change their lifestyles?
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