NHS spends £800k to widen doors for obese

Hospitals in Scotland are being forced to widen mortuary and hospital doors to cope with the obesity crisis.

Figures reveal the NHS in Scotland has spent at least £800,000 adapting its facilities for fat people in the last three years.

However, the true cost is likely to be far higher as some health boards don’t keep a track of obesity-related costs.

The news follows reports that graveyards are widening plots to fit oversized coffins.Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “The costs involved in dealing with the obesity crisis are unbelievable. Sadly it’s a necessary evil as so many people are now extremely overweight.“The only advantage is that it can be seen as an investment as we will need these facilities for years to come because people in Britain are getting fatter and fatter. It’s an appalling situation but it’s one we’ve brought on ourselves.”

Around a quarter of Britain’s population is now obese, putting a huge strain on health services.

Hospitals are being forced to buy specialist stretchers, couches, cushions, wheelchairs, body bags, scales, operating tables and walking frames.

In NHS Ayrshire and Arran, officals spent £146,766 in three years on equipment and alterations to buildings to accommodate fat people. This included more than £20,000 upgrading the mortuary at Arran War Memorial Hospital, including changes so it can store the bodies of up to eight obese patients. It also forked out thousands of pounds widening doors at Crosshouse Hospital and £3,500 building a room for obese patients at Biggart Hospital.

NHS Grampian spent £242,373, including more than £165,000 on stretchers for people weighing up to 50 stone. The board also bought an £11,220 mobile mortuary cooling system which allows the bodies of obese patients to be kept cold on a bed or trolley if they are too large to move safely.

The difficulty in storing larger corpses has already created havoc in some British hospitals.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has spent more than £49,000 in the last three years on facilities for fat people, including a transport trolley costing £18,500. Other costs in Scotland included more than £162,000 spent by NHS Tayside, £14,000 by Borders, £20,000 by Forth Valley, £60,764 by Dumfries and Galloway, and £42,000 by NHS Fife, including £26,394 on a dental chair for obese patients. Orkney and Western Isles boards said they did not have any costs while Lothians, Highlands and Lanarkshire NHS did not provide details.

However, NHS Lanarkshire said it has purchased 700 beds in the last six years which can carry people weighing up to 40 stones. In England, Tameside Hospital in Lancashire had to widen its mortuary doors at the cost of £2,270 to deal with overweight bodies.

Also, in April, Sutton Bridge and Wingland Parish Council drew up plans for 30 super-sized cemetery plots close to the road so undertakers would have a shorter distance to carry heavy corpses.

The graves would be eight foot wide double that of a normal one.

In 2012 the family of David Gardner, 59, from Tetbury, claimed he was left to rot on a table at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital because his body was too big to fit in a mortuary fridge.