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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : March 21, 2018 6:27 PM IST
Obesity can lead to PCOS. ©Shutterstock
Top obesity surgeons from all over the world, who are congregating in the national capital for a high-profile conference, will make a strong pitch to the government to declare obesity as a disease and a non-cosmetic problem in order to bring bariatric surgery in the ambit of insurance. More than a 100 obesity surgeons will attend the 1st World Consensus Meeting for Bariatric Metabolic Surgery Standardisation (WCM-BMSS), which gets underway tomorrow (March 22).
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Shri J P Nadda will address the conference on March 23. On this occasion, bariatric surgeons will submit a white paper with a petition to the minister to declare obesity as a disease and a non-cosmetic problem.
According to the chairman of organizing committee of WCM-BMSS Dr. Mohit Bhandari there are of myth exist regarding bariatric surgery where most of the Government bodies still consider it cosmetic surgery. He added as per the medical council of India, the bariatric surgery comes under the rubric of surgical gastroenterology and therefore should be reimbursed. Dr. Bhandari is the chairman of bariatric metabolic surgery center based out of Indore.
Central Government has already started reimbursing for bariatric and metabolic surgery, and so is the need for uniform insurance coverage across the country, he added.
Dr. Arun Prasad, president of Obesity Surgery Society of India (OSSI) said that there is growing need to understand the developing obesity and type 2 diabetes crises in India. India has been ranked number three country in terms of some obese in the world. We are succeeded only by China and United States of America.
Dr. Bhandari said that the significant challenges to combat obesity in India is lack of awareness about causes of obesity, lack of protocol-based scientific treatment of obesity, ever growing type 2 diabetes, lack of Government initiative to recognize obesity as a disease, lack of reimbursement by premier insurance stakeholders for obesity and its treatment. The pressing need is to involve stakeholders at one common platform who can define the disease, estimate the disease burden, suggest a policy to treatment and put forward guidelines to expand access to obesity care by both insurance companies and Government.
Dr. Mohit Bhandari informed that the meeting is hosting more than 100 bariatric surgery leaders from across the globe and will be endorsed by 52 international bariatric surgery societies. President of different societies will brief on the status of access to obesity care in their countries and will also throw light on insurance coverage.
Press release
Image source: Shutterstock
