[Ontario] announced in 2009 it would spend $75 million over three years to increase the number of bariatric surgeries from 244 in 2008 to 1,470 a year by 2011-12.
It's a major expansion for the weight-loss procedure, but waiting lists remain long. A 2005 report from Ontario's Medical Advisory Secretariat estimated that the province would need to do 3,500 obesity-related surgeries a year to keep up with demand.
In the most common form of the surgery, gastric bypass surgery, a surgeon reduces the capacity of the stomach to hold food, greatly reducing a person's appetite and in turn leading to quick weight loss within the first year, as much as 70 per cent of excess weight.
[We either pay for walkable and bikeable cities, or we pay for surgury. -MH]
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