‘Too heavy' – NHS patients are sent to the vets for scans – Royal Veterinary College say obese have had to use horse scanners
Thursday, 12th January 2012
Published: 12 January 2012
by TOM FOOT
OBESE patients are being referred to Camden’s veterinary college because they are too heavy to fit in standard NHS hospital body scanners.
The Royal Veterinary College, in Royal College Street, confirmed its CT scanners – custom-designed for horses to stand up in – have been used by NHS patients.
The move comes as hospitals enter into a programme of reinforcing beds and widening wheelchairs to suit Camden’s heavier population, with experts warning that being overweight has become “the norm”.
Recently published NHS statistics claim that 11 per cent of adults in Camden are clinically obese.
Riaz Dharamshi, a geriatric registrar at Paddington’s St Mary’s Hospital, revealed he was trained to refer obese patients to London Zoo in Regent’s Park as a junior medic at University College Hospital.
In his blog, he said: “Imagine the humiliation for the patient: ‘I’m sorry, sir, but you are too fat to have a CT scan, so we are going to have to send you to the zoo, where they are used to dealing with larger specimens.’”
A spokeswoman for London Zoo said it did not take NHS patients for scans but a spokeswoman at the Royal Veterinary College, for animal treatment, confirmed it did, adding: “That is correct.”
The North Central London sector NHS Trust said it did not keep records of the numbers of patients scanned at London Zoo or the Royal Veterinary College.
Changes to hospital equipment include the use of specialist bariatric beds which can now take people weighing up to 70 stone.
Dr Dharamshi added: “Some bright spark decided it would be a good idea to up the loading capacity of the tables we use in the CT scanners, so the problem of having patients too big to scan is not one we face all that often.”
He added: “Wheelchairs are wider, theatre operating tables are stronger and we have access to reinforced hospital beds when we need them.
Being overweight has become the norm.”
In Camden, 4,200 people are diagnosed each year with coronary heart disease, a condition related to bad diet and obesity.
