Mumbai: Things are set to get even better for Eman Ahmed Abdelaty after a treatment schedule by doctors at Saifee Hospital helped her reduce her weight by 120 kg. Hospital authorities said on Thursday that Ms. Ahmed, who was the world’s heaviest woman at 500 kg when she came to Mumbai last month from her hometown Alexandria in Egypt, has been operated upon to facilitate further weight loss.
In a release, Saifee Hospital said a team of doctors performed a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy on Ms. Ahmed on March 7. The procedure involves removing a major portion of the stomach, leaving a narrow gastric tube, or ‘sleeve’. The 36-year-old, it added, is now on an oral fluids diet and is accepting it well.
The medical team treating her will make efforts to cure all associated medical problems, and get her fit enough to fly back to Egypt as soon as possible, the hospital said.
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Bariatric surgeon Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala, who is treating Ms. Ahmed, said the surgery lasted one-and-a-half hours. “We had to remove her gallbladder as well, as she had 15 stones,” he said. Dr. Lakdawala said the sleeve gastrectomy procedure went smoothly. Though Ms. Ahmed eats very little, the procedure will help control her gut hormones that lead to weight gain. “The 48 hours after surgery were crucial and we have crossed that period without any complications.”
Ms. Ahmed was lifted by crane and shifted from her special ward to Saifee Hospital’s main building. The operation theatre is on the eighth floor and she was able to fit into the elevator as her body width has been reduced considerably after losing over 120 kg. Dr. Lakdawala said in the next six months, she will lose another 100 to 150 kg.
Before being brought to Mumbai on a specially chartered flight, Ms. Ahmed was confined to her bed and had not left her house for the last 25 years. After landing here, she was lifted, along with the bed on which she laid while travelling, with the help of a crane and taken to the hospital on a bed made especially for her.
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Prior to the surgery, she had been put on a medication regime to counter various problems brought about by her obesity. Doctors at the hospital said her daily intake of fluid is 2,000 ml, and she passes nearly 3.5 litres of urine. In cases like these, water loss leads to weight loss, and a litre of water lost equals about 1.5 kg of weight lost The medical team had also gone in for genetic tests to identify genes responsible for weight gain in her case. With PTI inputs