WISTERIA LANE’S DEAD END FELICITY HUFFMAN SHEDS TEARS {page 9}
SURVIVOR
SEAN KINGSTON RECOVERS AFTER ACCIDENT {page 10}
OTTAWA
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 www.metronews.ca News worth sharing.
Obituary sparks wait-list debate Health care for the obese impeded by discrimination, Ottawa doctor says Lillian Coakley wrote her own obituary when she learned how long she’d have to wait for surgery in Nova Scotia. Now, an Ottawa doctor who helped publicize her plight says Ontario is also facing increasingly long waiting lists for bariatric surgery — and our attitude toward people who are obese is a big part of the problem. “Obesity is the last socially acceptable form of discrimination and stereotypes,” said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff. Coakley was told she’d have to wait ten years for the potentially life-saving procedure. So, she sent a scathing letter, including her own fictionalized obituary, to public-health officials and politicians. Dr. Freedhoff, a Lillian Coakley weight-loss
DAVID VAN DYKE/METRO
An excerpt from Lillian Coakley’s self-written obituary.
specialist, reproduced it on his blog, Weighty Matters. A ten-year waiting list endangers lives, he said. “Some people will almost certainly die in that ten-year span because they may already have developed things like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension,” he said.
The wait ing list is not as extreme in Ontario, he said. Currently, it’s at a year or two, but growing as demand outstrips the province’s capacity. Until a couple of years ago, when OHIP stopped paying for patients to have the surgery
done in the U.S., the wait was only four to six months, he said. Freedhoff’s blog post attracted an offer from a surgeon in Mexico to perform the procedure on Coakley for free. But her honesty also attracted harsh criticism on the Internet. That the stigma that obese people should just “try harder” to lose weight is a reason why “Canada is terrible at funding bariatric surgery,” said Freedhoff. Blame, he argued, has no place in medicine: “We treat people regardless of how they got to our offices,” he said. “The smokers with emphysema, the alcoholics with cirrhosis — we treat everybody.” There’s an economic argument as well. The $15,000 to $18,000 cost of the surgery more than pays for itself by forestalling the longterm costs to the system incurred by obesity and its associated illnesses, Freedhoff said. STEVE COLLINS
Freedhoff
A selection from the self-written obituary “We are sad to inform you of the untimely passing of a young mother, sister, daughter and friend. She died at a young age due to complication with obesity that she fought for years to overcome. She was the youngest child of seven and she leaves behind her two sons, who both lived at home with her. Her entire life was lived for her boys who she loved immensely and were her pride and joy. She was survived by her three sisters and three brothers, along with many nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews. She loved to sew and do crafts and was an awesome cook and loved to help others and would give what she could to anyone in need. She enjoyed comedy and good laughs.... She would appreciate if you speak out and support Obesity Weight Loss Surgery and obesity awareness and write a letter to your local MLA and to anyone who will listen.”
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