Lifelong Wales rugby fan Zac Smith says he has has been forced to wear an England jersey to support his team – because although he’s too large for a Welsh one, he couldn’t get a weight-loss operation on the NHS.
Zac, the subject of BBC Cymru Wales’s current affairs programme Week In Week Out (Wednesday, March 2, BBC One Wales) which follows his mission to lose more than 30 stone, was so large at almost 50 stone that only mail order clothes were big enough. And with the majority of mail order firms based in England, his only hope of wearing a sporting shirt was to don that of Wales’s bitterest rivals.
Celebrating next year’s Six Nations may see Zac wearing his own team’s colours, thanks to a gastric sleeve operation he had in November. But he had to use his family’s life savings to pay for an operation in India after being refused weight-loss surgery on the NHS.
Week In Week Out highlights the plight of people like Zac who view surgery as the only way to change their way of life and lose weight. Though Zac was billed as super-obese, with a staggering body mass index of 72.6, he was told he didn’t qualify for an operation on the NHS because he also needed to also have a severe illness associated with obesity, such as diabetes or hypertension. Zac was also told he was just too big for a safe operation.
The 37-year-old, from Rhoose in the Vale of Glamorgan, has been obese most of his adult life. Two years ago, following some family bereavements, he decided he didn’t want to die young because of his over-eating and requested weight-loss surgery on the NHS.
“Look at me! I’m a prime candidate and I’m angry and annoyed they turned me down,” he said.
Weight-loss or bariatric surgery, which reduces the amount a patient can eat by altering the digestive system, is strictly rationed in Wales – only around 50 operations are approved each year on the NHS.
According to conservative estimates calculated for Week In Week Out by health economist Siobhan McClelland of the University of Glamorgan, there are around 432 people in Wales who are suitable for weight-loss surgery. She estimates that operating on all these people would cost the NHS an extra £2.5m a year but would save Wales nine million pounds in reduced benefit payments.
The Welsh Assembly Government is doubling the amount of funding allocated to bariatric surgery this year, but says that any morbid obesity service must demonstrate cost effectiveness and represent value for money.
But Zac tells Week In Week Out the current NHS advice is virtually useless for people like him who are super- or morbidly-obese. “You can’t give someone who’s struggled all their life with weight a diet sheet and information on exercise and pat them out the door and say good luck. It just isn’t going to happen,” he says.
Despite fearing he may die on the operating table, Zac came through the gastric sleeve surgery, which reduced the size of his stomach by 80%. Week In Week Out has been following his progress for the past three months, as he embarks on an attempt to lose more than 30 stone.
“This operation’s just a tool, and it’s up to me now to use it properly,” he says.
Week In Week Out: Wednesday, March 2, BBC One Wales, 10.45pm
