The SA healthcare system has taken many knocks for years — from incompetence to corruption — but there has been one constant conundrum throughout these phases, it is that obese people in SA are being killed by the healthcare system that is meant to care for them.
It is a known reality that SA is a developing nation, but unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, it is significantly under-developing at this stage in time. But throughout our history, one thing we have never done was to take the healthcare of our people seriously, even worse, the healthcare of obese people.
Our country’s obesity rate has increased tenfold in the past 25 years; we are becoming an obese nation and our government seems to not take notice of this fact; worst of all, obese people are most at risk of succumbing to Covid-19.
It is increasingly becoming evident that this is not only a SA phenomenon, but a worldwide phenomenon, and the Covid-19 pandemic laid that bare for all to see. The pandemic claimed countless obese people and throughout its deadly rampage obese people who are most at risk were not prioritised for vaccination, even worse, there was no mention in the media or from researchers about the severity of Covid-19 on obese people to prepare them for the worst.
Even at our government hospitals, there are no wheelchairs for obese people, they have to face the reality that — no matter how badly injured you are, no matter how sick you are — you will need to walk on your own without the assistance of a wheelchair because public hospitals do not deem it a necessity to supply them.
Quality healthcare is a human right that many obese people find hard to come by. It starts with something small like, in most public hospitals, people who weigh above 180kg cannot get weighed as the scales only reach 180kg, many obese people don’t even know their exact weight because the scales in our public hospitals do not get to that weight.
The blood pressure machines as well struggle with accurately measuring their blood pressure because our hospitals are not equipped to deal with obese patients.
The majority of obese people do not have medical aid or health insurance because they're unemployed and hence do not get the best healthcare available. Many of them are diagnosed with heart diseases, hence a number of obese people die at a disproportionate rate.
Pivotal machines like X-ray machines in public hospitals cannot hold the weight of obese patients, so that means if something is wrong in your body, it may take days to find out what it is because you will need to travel thousands of kilometres for a simple X-ray scan. Life-saving machines like CAT scans are unavailable for obese people in the majority of our provinces.
The healthcare of every citizen in every province must be equitably taken care of. As a country with a phenomenal obesity rate on the African continent, government hospitals must prioritise obesity as a disability and have a dedicated gastric bypass surgery unit and other treatments for obesity and the underlying health issues.
Obesity and weight problems have always been unbearable and many people don’t have an outlet in terms of what they can do because they couldn’t get any help. The World Health Organisation has called for “zero discrimination in healthcare” and for access to timely, quality healthcare for all obese people. SA needs to do better, people are dying from preventable diseases.
•Mogale is a Sowetan reader
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