Patient enquiries about Bariatric surgery at Gold Coast Private Hospital Specialist Suites

What is your weight, height and BMI ?

Please note:

For the Caucasian population, Medicare will only approve bariatric surgery for

• Patients with a BMI>40
• or BMI>35 with medical problems (such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, severe sleep apnoea or cancer (breast, endometrial, bowel))

The recommended age range is usually between 18 to 65 years.

Younger female patients should consider finishing their family first before having weight loss surgery.

• Some patients outside this range may be approved for surgery depending on clinical grounds
• But patients in the older age range may not benefit from weight loss surgery, the body weight loss is less, the chronic medical conditions may not be reversible and the permanent damage (long term insulin requiring diabetes, heart attack, degenerative joint disease, etc) may not resolve after surgery

We don’t know where you live

• I have stopped accepting patients from other states or. capital cities.
  • There are plenty of good bariatric surgeons in the major centres already, please see one of the surgeons there
  • Only concentrating on providing service for patients from coastal and country Queensland and Northern Rivers NSW

If you already have a surgeon in the past, please return to see your original surgical team. It is professional courtesy that I don’t steal patients from my colleagues.

Costs:

Please make sure that the health fund will cover you for:

*The sleeve gastrectomy or gastric bypass (the item number is 31575 or 31572)

You may to pay a hospital excess (that depends on your health fund)

The surgery cost $500

The assistant fee is $500 (for gastric bypass)

The anaesthetist will also charge you a small gap (~$500)

The other costs may include (medications from pharmacy, blood tests, x-rays, etc.)

If there are any complications and other specialist needs to consult, they will charge you extra.

For those travelling to the Gold Coast, obviously you will need to factor in the cost of flying or driving plus accommodation

• the stay in hospital is usually 2 days
  • (Patients from far away often stay for a week on the Gold Coast after discharge from hospital before returning home)

Please note:

• There are limitations to weight loss surgery, you won’t lose as much weight as you think (you won’t get to a BMI of 20-25)
• Weight loss surgery is drastic and not reversible
• It does have side effects and complications
• Please do your research carefully

Patients who smoke cigarettes and consume large amounts of alcohol will be rejected for surgery

Please note:

All patients have to agree to the steps below if they wish to have surgery here on the Gold Coast:

• They need to have a regular and a very good GP to do the primary assessment and post op follow up (especially after a gastric bypass).
• They need to have regular meetings with their dietician and exercise physiologist in the pre and post op period.
• They have to see a psychologist if the GP or surgeon suggested it.
• They agreed to email the surgeon to give periodic updates in 2 weeks, 3 months and 12 months.

• They need to keep their private health insurance in case more hospital/medical treatment is needed in the future (eg. surgery for gallstones or hiatus hernia/reflux).
• They need to report any post op issues and concerns early on and attempts will be made to bring the patients back to the Gold Coast.

I am seeing a trend of my past patients developing reflux, hiatus hernia and weight regain coming back for revision hiatus hernia repair and gastric bypass surgery, sometimes many years after the initial sleeve gastrectomy.

• You will need to have private health insurance to have revision surgeries done.

Phone and email follow up:

We are now part of the Bariatric Surgery Registry, the hospital employs a nurse to ring the patients periodically to follow up on the weight loss results and to identify any patients with post op problems, especially with reflux, weight regain and post op complications.

A Bariatric Physician/GP will see you or do a phone consult after the surgery, which might be 1 month, 3 to 6 or 12 months post op.

You must always keep in close contact with the surgeon via email (victorliew@live.com.au) and with the office via phone (07 5530 0770) or email (admin@gcpss.com.au).