TENS of thousands of pounds have been spent buying special new equipment at York Hospital to cope with rising numbers of overweight patients.

Over the last year, the hospital's maternity unit has installed heavy duty new apparatus to cater for obese mums-to-be.

The rest of the Wigginton Road organisation has installed a range of new hoists, chairs and beds to cope with the fact that more and more patients are heavy.

Margaret Jackson, head of midwifery at York Hospital, said it was now not unusual for pregnant women on its books to weigh 25 stone.

"In general terms, health-wise, we would encourage people to look at a healthier lifestyle and to reduce their weight," she said. "There is a risk to their health and to their baby's health as well.

"We have particularly noticed that over the last year that the population in generally is getting larger. It's about trying to support women, but not make it (obvious) to everyone else that we've made these changes."

The hospital's maternity unit now has a special "heavy profiling" bed for mums who have had their babies - which can take a weight of up to 42 stone.

There is also a reinforced easy chair and a theatre table with special extensions for bigger women who are having caesarean sections.

Last year, the Friends Of York Hospital charity paid for about £30,000 of equipment specifically for the use of patients awaiting obesity surgery - but it is lent to other wards to cater for other larger patients.

So far special hoists, lifting devices, commodes, chairs, and scales have all been bought.

The organisation is now planning to buy heavy duty seating for people waiting in different departments. This will be similar to the seats in its reception area, which can take up to 50 stone.

An equipment library set up to manage buying this apparatus now wants to purchase a heavy duty motorised wheelchair and patient couch, which will cost about £10,000 - ten times as much as standard equivalents.

York Hospital nursing director Mike Proctor said: "The trust takes into account that staff, visitors and patients can weigh in excess of 40 stone, but it is not always the weight which is the problem, sometimes it's the dimensions of the patient.

"Purchasing the extra equipment enables the hospital to treat bariatric (obesity surgery) patients with the same dignity as any other patient, to accommodate their physical size and weight, and to reduce the risk to nurses of causing injury to themselves while moving or treating the patients."


Maternal obesity problem

IN WESTERN counties, 28 per cent of pregnant women are said to be overweight, and 11 per cent clinically obese.

Obesity brings an increased risk of miscarriage and pre-eclampsia, and need for caesarean sections.

There is also a risk a baby could be still born, or that it could grow up to have weight problems.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says the problem of obesity in pregnant women is growing and is examining ways of tackling the issue.