A mother who had a gastric band operation to protect her daughter has tragically died. 30-year old Kerry Greaves wanted to stop her daughter being bullied due to her mother’s weight when she was picked up at the school gates. At 18-stone, she was desperate to shed the weight.
However severe complications after the surgery meant that her stomach failed to heal after the procedure and in spite of 14 further operations to save her life, she died of organ failure.
Her mother, Anne, said that Kerry was encouraged to have the procedure after she learnt that friends had had it done with success. Anne said that though her daughter had tried Weight Watchers, Slim Fast and other diets, she only ever lost a bit.
With her 3-year old Melissa starting school next year, though she herself had never been teased for her weight she was concerned her daughter might be “picked on” for having a big mum, her number one reason for getting the extreme procedure done.
Each year, thousands of obese people get some kind of bariatric surgery done. These can rang from gastric banding, where a band is fitted around the upper part of the stomach to shrink it, to gastric balloon insertion, where a balloon is inflated in the belly, again to reduce its size.
The mortality rate for the operation is 1 in 2,000. While some NHS trusts will pay for the procedure, some people are so desperate to lose weight they are willing to pay privately or even go abroad.
Anne Greaves said that if anyone was thinking of getting the procedure done, she would say to them, “Find more pride in yourself and don’t do it.”